


August

by mccalled



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Character Death, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, References to Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-19
Updated: 2013-01-19
Packaged: 2017-11-26 01:57:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/645272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mccalled/pseuds/mccalled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Everything about Stiles’ senior year circled back to August. August was the big picture, but August was also the details. He doesn’t like August, but he likes Erica’s boots, and he likes Derek’s hands.</i>
</p><p>Or: The many ways to fall in love with your friends, and how to deal with the one thing werewolves can't heal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	August

**Author's Note:**

> This was born out of a need for Stiles and Erica to be friends, and to see Derek get roped into having a party with them all. The rest spawned from that, and just kept _happening_. And now I am so, so ready to wash my hands of this thing and never look at it again hah. 
> 
> Warnings: Mentioned in the tags, but there is a character death. It's not main pairing, but is the main focus of the fic (if you want to know who in advance, skip to the end notes!). There is also some recreational pot and alcohol use, and a few small mentions of panic attacks. If I missed anything, please let me know and I'll fix it!

“Hey, Stilinski.” 

“Holy _god_ ,” Stiles yells, jumping in his chair and managing to bang his knee on the underside of his desk. He spins in the direction of the intrusion and sees Erica sitting in the windowsill, smiling and bouncing the backs of her boots against the wall. 

Erica's been a werewolf all of six months, and she's already reached Derek-levels of creep. It must have been all that time she spent trying, and eventually succeeding, to sneak away from the alphas all summer.

"Do you guys just do this to screw with me? There’s a _door_ , you know.”

“Your window was open,” she says simply. She hops down from the sill and walks around the room, picking things up as she walks by to examine them for a moment before putting them back. “Besides, Derek only did it once. Stop complaining.”

“Hey, whatever. I get it. I'm kind of a catch,” Stiles says, holding his hands out in front of him as if putting himself on display. Erica glances at him for a second from where she’s standing by the bookcase, leafing through his copy of _Lord of the Flies_ , and rolls her eyes. 

“That must be it,” she says, and Stiles drops his hands with a small huff. She replaces the book on the shelf and sits down on his bed, shoving her hands between her knees and bouncing her feet against the edge of the bed, just like she had on the windowsill. 

“Anything I can help you with?” Stiles asks, now that he’s been thoroughly distracted from seeing how long he can spend on Wikipedia reading about regional American accents instead of writing his first paper of junior year.

“Nope,” she says, her gaze flitting around the room, looking at everything from the posters on the walls to the small tick marks on the edge of the doorway marking Stiles’ height through the years. 

“So you’re just…here,” he says, eyebrows furrowing. 

“Yep,” she says cheerfully, giving him a quick smile before returning to her examination of the room. 

Stiles taps his fingers on the armrest of his chair for a second, his nails making clicking noise against the plastic, before nodding and licking his lips. “Right. Not to sound rude or anything, but uh…why?”

Erica sighs and finally looks right at him, somehow managing to make him feel dumb for even asking in the first place, as though this wasn’t his room that she was busy inspecting with her crazy werewolf sight. 

He points vaguely towards his computer, not entirely sure if he’s in the mood to deal with werewolf stuff today. “Because I was kind of doing someth-”

“I just,” Erica interrupts, rolling her eyes. She shrugs, looking vaguely uncomfortable. “I didn’t really want to be at home anymore. It was too quiet. Derek and Isaac are out training with Jackson, and Boyd’s working with his bio partner. And I – I don’t know. I’ve never been over here before. It seemed like the thing to do.”

“Oh, I get it, I’m a last resort then,” Stiles jokes. “I see how these pack dynamics are working out. Leave the human for last. Drag me in, kicking and screaming, and this is how it goes. Glad it’s out of the way early, at least. Before I got my hopes up." 

Erica gives him a considering look at that, tilting her head the tiniest bit. It’s almost Scott-like, and Stiles decides then that he needs to have a talk with Derek about slowing down on the pack bonding or whatever it is they’ve been doing.

"You’re not a last resort, Stiles,” She says with a small eyebrow furrow. She sounds almost genuine, and it makes Stiles just uncomfortable enough to cough and scratch behind his ear, searching for a change of subject.

“Right, well then. Welcome to el casa de Stilinski. If you call the front desk, we’ll have heated towels delivered free of charge. Tips are encouraged, though,” he says, grabbing his phone from the desk and spinning it absentmindedly, just something to do with his hands. 

Erica's lips quirk upward, but she doesn’t say anything, resuming her scan of his room instead. Stiles’ phone slips from his grip and flies across the floor, out of reach from his place in his chair. While Erica’s busy looking at his old soccer trophies (the small plastic ones they’re required to give every player at the end of the season when you're little), he sinks low in his chair, stretching his legs out to try and kick his phone back in his direction. 

He’s almost got it when he extends a little too far, his chair tipping forward and dumping him on the ground, legs extended in front of him. He winces at the noise the chair makes, and Erica turns her attention back to him. Stiles thinks it says something about how far they’ve come in the last few months that she just purses her lips and covers her mouth to keep from giggling, instead of outright laughing at him like she might have before. 

“Hungry?” he asks, standing up and ignoring the physical comedy worthy of the bad sitcom that is his life.

Erica’s examination of his belongings continues downstairs as well, looking at the pictures lining the wall by the staircase and thumbing absently through a stack of papers his dad left on the kitchen table that morning. 

“Those are just the boring precinct reports. He keeps the interesting stuff in his office or in the safe in his room,” Stiles says, his tone just barely edging on bitter. His dad started keeping a lot tighter lid on his work stuff after all the meddling Stiles did sophomore year. Stiles finds leftover spring rolls in the fridge and returns to the living room where Erica’s playing with the fringe of the throw blanket over the couch. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Stiles asks, handing her a spring roll and taking a bite of his own. “You’re being…weird.” For lack of better word.

“Just one of those days,” Erica says vaguely, waving a hand at his general direction. “I like your house. It looks…”

“Worn?” Stiles laughs. “We don’t clean as often as we should, and the couches don’t match anymore, but I mean, it’s not like we’re – “

“Lived-in,” She interrupts. “It looks like people live here, even if it’s just you two.”

Stiles doesn’t really know what to say to that, but thinks now he might have a better idea of what’s got her acting so strange. He shoves the rest of his spring roll in his mouth for something to do, and nods. He’s not in the mood today for werewolf problems, but these are just people problems. 

Stiles can understand people problems.

“Your dad’s an insurance investigator, right?” Stiles asks after he’s swallowed. Erica nods. “What’s your mom do?”

“Uh, she’s a lawyer in San Diego. It’s just me. And my dad,” She says. “Sometimes.”

“Busy job?”

“Sometimes,” she repeats. Stiles has said the exact thing himself enough to know the non-dictionary definition of ‘sometimes’, and gives her a look that he hopes conveys as much. She rolls her eyes and looks away, obviously ready to drop the subject, but Stiles just stares until she huffs and continues. “There’s not that much to do here so he works in a lot of nearby cities, which means he’s usually gone for weekends or overnight. Especially since I’ve “mysteriously” gotten better. It’s whatever though, I can handle myself,” she says shrugging and taking a bite of her spring roll. 

Stiles nods again. If he’s learned anything about Erica, it’s that she can definitely take care of herself. But just because you _can_ doesn’t necessarily mean that you should have to be alone in doing it. He got lucky - he and Scott had each other growing up while their parents were busy, but he knows Erica well enough to know that she never had that. 

“Well, I mean. It’s not always loud and happening over here, and my dad works a lot. But I do tend to make a lot of noise just walking from one room to another, so, if you wanted...I don’t know. The windows are usually open.” Stiles says, the open invitation going mostly unsaid. 

A flicker of emotion passes on her face for a second, and her hand twitches just a little, likes she wants to reach out to him or something. He's reminded of that night in the train depot, screaming from the pain in her arm, her body tense from the seizure. He kind of wants to push her hair back like had then, but he stops himself. 

He concludes that maybe he's always had a bit of a soft spot for Erica Reyes. He’s strangely okay with that.

She pulls her hand back and bites her lip for a second, looking around the room. When her eyes find him again, they’ve regained their usual glint of mischief, and she gives him a big smile. “So, what do you have for fun around here?”

When the sheriff returns home well after dark, a large pizza cradled in his arms, the first thing he sees upon walking through the door is the two sitting together on the couch laughing at something on the TV.

They pause when they hear the door close and look up at him, managing to hold their laughter long enough for Stiles to squeak out a small. “Yo, dad,” before Erica snorts and they’re off again. 

“I don’t want to know,” Stiles’ dad says, walking straight past the two and setting the pizza down on the table.

 

As it turns out, it was Isaac who pulled Scott in. Scott wanted to be Isaac’s pack, but Isaac still wanted to be Derek’s. They all ended up getting their way one way or another, and Scott came around to Derek once he realized that having an Alpha doesn’t exactly equate to indentured servitude or anything. Stiles was expecting it, but he was still a little surprised at the maturity with which Scott did so.

“It’s mostly just like having a really annoying big brother who likes to call you an idiot and make you run a lot,” Scott says a few weeks after he’d officially accepted his place. Stiles is tempted to play devil’s advocate and bring up the secrets and betrayals that have historically run rampant in the ongoing relationship saga that is Scott-and-Derek, but Scott just shrugs, beating him to it. “Brothers and stuff. They don’t always do it in the best ways, but they’re usually looking out for you.”

And Stiles can’t really say anything to that, because if there’s one thing Derek’s always been relatively consistent at, it’s been looking out for Scott and the others. 

The intention was there, at least. The execution could sometimes use some work. 

Stiles expected that he would follow soon enough after, because he’s long accepted the fact that Scott could run off to the moon and Stiles would catch the next rocket out to join him. Being pack was mostly just like not being pack, with the added bonus of picking Isaac up on most mornings on the way to school.

What he wasn’t expecting, however, was for it to be Erica who would drag him head first into a wolf pack that he’d always been kind of tip-toeing around. He was at the edge, happy to observe and participate at will, but she made it so that he _was_ the edge, keeping the rest of them in when it felt like the walls were wearing thin. 

He probably should have seen it coming, because more than anybody else, Erica has a way of tearing him down and shocking him to his core.

+++  
 _SEPTEMBER_  


“Senior year, man!” Scott says, hopping into Stiles’ jeep and throwing his backpack at his feet. “What do you think?”

“What do I think?” Stiles says, pulling out of the driveway and turning onto the main road. He could do this drive blindfolded, with no hands, going backwards and naked. 

Preferably not naked, though. 

“I think it’s another year of sitting on the bench in lacrosse and going home to watch reruns of Seinfeld, and making sure your werewolf ass doesn’t kill anybody once a month.” Right onto Oak street, straight past the video store where Peter killed that clerk. 

Oak merges into Fell, and Stiles switches lanes so he can turn right at the park. If he looks into the distance, he can see the tree with the missing limb where, sometime in June, Jackson had heeded Scott’s’ dare that he couldn’t climb to the top in less than ten seconds. Jackson had fallen on his ass when the branch broke, and Stiles had spent ten minutes on the grass, unable to get up from laughing.

“You’re not excited?" Scott asks. 

Stiles takes the right and doesn’t look at the tree, pretending instead that it's just a hole in the ground where something used to be. “Just. I don’t know man, I don't know if we're ready.”

Scott thinks about it for a moment, tilting his head and Stiles has to bite his lip and tighten his grip on the wheel to refrain from patting at Scott’s ear like a dog. And people say he has no self-control. 

"Well sure, it’ll be different. Really different. But there’s no going back, you know? And it’ll be fine, it’ll work out. Don’t worry about it. We just have to go about it like - like everything's normal.” Scott says, picking at his nails and looking slightly sicker than he did a moment ago. 

The look on Scott's face is making him want to turn around and fall face first back into bed, but Scott had used the magic words that stops him from doing just that. 

Normal. If there's anything Stiles can do, it's fake normal. 

“Yeah, no problem,” Stiles says, turning into the school and shutting off the engine once he's parked. “Not worried. We've got this,” He gives Scott a big smile, and Scott nods, looking less green at Stiles’ reassurance. 

Allison knocks on Scott’s window. His face immediately breaks into a grin and he opens the door, hopping down from the jeep. He gives Allison a quick kiss on the cheek when he hits the ground, and she reaches around him to close the Jeep door and give Stiles a smile. “Bye Stiles!”

“Later, dude,” Scott says, wrapping an arm around Allison as they head to the main entrance. Stiles watches them walk away.

“Later,” Stiles says, doubtful if Scott heard him, mutant ears or not. He grabs his backpack from behind his seat and jumps out of the Jeep.

He looks up at the building, and wonders how many hallways and rooms are going to become holes in his memory today. 

“Senior year,” he sighs to himself. He pulls on the strap of his backpack, shakes his head, and walks in.

+++  
 _MAY_  


Stiles is hot. He is sweaty and dirty and sticky and hot. And covered in mud.

“It is way too hot for being as north as we are,” Stiles complains, pulling at the sleeves of his hoodie.

“It’s summer, Stiles,” Derek says.

“No, it’s not. It’s late May. It’s still spring. It should not be hitting record levels this early in the year,” Stiles says. 

“It’s California.”

“It’s _northern_ California. And not northern California like Stockton is northern California. This is _practically Oregon_ northern California,” Stiles gripes. He can take warm, he likes warm. A nice sunny day with a light breeze and blue sky, Stiles is all for it. Sign him up. 

He does not, however, like hot and sticky and way more miserable than it should be for a day he thought would be alright for jeans and a hoodie.

He also does not like Derek laughing at him.

Stiles thinks that he’s learned the language of Derek’s eyebrows well enough by now to know what his face does when he’s doing the Derek-equivalent of laughing. But this isn’t even as polite as eyebrow-subtext. This is just straight up laughing, with his mouth and everything.

“What are you doing - no, no you stop that," Stiles says, crossing his arms over his muddy chest. “It’s not funny, Derek. What is even happening with your _face_ , I don’t understand it at all.”

Most people assume Stiles is a rambler. He’s really not, but since people won’t let it go, he's not above using it as a weapon when necessary. Especially against Derek.

“Stop that, it’s freaking me out. It’s like if Snape decided to develop a sense of humor. And sorry to say it, but you just can’t be Snape. I’m the one who had a tragic unrequited love for a redhead and I just don’t think you have the body type for floor-length robes.” He absolutely does not add that Derek could probably pull off the robes if he really wanted to – Stiles has long since accepted that Derek could probably wear a Mumu and Birkenstocks and Stiles would still be down to jump his bones. 

But he doesn’t. Because he still has to complete senior year and he prefers his throat where it’s at. Safely in his neck.

Derek’s mostly stopped laughing by now, but his eyebrows are still looking uncharacteristically amused.

"You couldn’t pull off being a triple agent, unrequited love or not. You’d probably just fall over and top-secret papers would fall out of your jacket or something,” Derek says, turning around and walking in the opposite direction along the bank of the lake. It’s their new favorite place to pass the time, since it’s almost entirely surrounded and covered by trees, and far enough into the woods that nobody will wonder about the noise and occasional growling.

Stiles takes credit for finding it, even though Scott claims that he woke up here after he was first bitten so he should get the credit. 

Scott can go to hell though, because he didn’t even remember the place until Stiles showed it to him. Magic werewolf senses, his ass. What’s the point in waking up in cool places if you can’t even find them later?

Stiles follows Derek petulantly, trying to pick drying mud off of his hoodie. “I regret the day I ever made you watch that marathon on ABC family.”

Derek just gives him a withering look in lieu of an actual reply. Stiles had pushed and prodded for months during junior year for him to finish reading the books since he’d only made it to the fourth one as a teenager, and they’d ended up compromising for the movies instead. Stiles considers it a hard-fought battle that he won fair and square, with absolutely no threats of leaking false information to the Argents if he didn’t sit his furry ass down and go to Hogwarts for a few hours. 

“I could totally be a triple agent,” Stiles says, preparing to launch back into his attack. He claps his hands together to rid them of mud, and Derek shoves him a little when some of it lands on his shirt. “Maybe I’ve been selling your secrets all these years and you’ve just been too dumb to notice. So wrapped up in your pack and making sure you have an unlimited supply of wife-beaters and leather jackets that you didn’t even notice what was going on right under your nose. Maybe I’ve been taking lessons from the Gene Simmons school of liars and betrayers, ever think of that?”

Derek throws Stiles a quick look, and Stiles interprets his eyebrows as confusion. 

“Where’d I lose you? Was it the Gene Simmons thing? He can control his heartbeat and pass a lie detector test,” Stiles explains. “Or at least, I think he can. I don’t know, I never finished that episode of Family Jewels…”

“Stiles,” Derek says. Stiles ignores him and launches into a diatribe about Gene Simmons’ footie pajamas, reveling in his impending successful revenge. He suspects it’ll end with throat-threatening or maybe a mouth full of leaves, but it’ll be worth it.

“Do you think I could pull those off? I mean, sure maybe I don’t have the cute bumbling old man thing going for me, but maybe if it was like an ironic thing? Is that going too far? Oh, why am I asking you, you wear nothing but bloody shirts and leather jackets with sleeves too long for you, and are your boots even – “

“Stiles,” Derek says, louder this time. “Shut. _Up._ ”

“Oh no, you don’t get to interrupt me. This is your payback. It’s totally your fault that I’m covered in dirt and leaves and whatever else was in that mud pit. Is it so hard to hold a branch back for somebody instead of letting it swing back at them? It’s just called common courtesy, dude. I know you were literally raised by wolves and all, but I’ve seen you hold doors for old ladies at the store, so I know that you’re not like a total canine in the rough and happen to have a tiny ounce of – “

Stiles’s next words are drowned out by a sudden assault to his center of gravity as he finds himself falling sideways into the lake. He gasps and wipes the water from his eyes when he resurfaces, and sees Derek standing on the bank, looking down at Stiles with his arms crossed. He hadn’t expected a full-on bodily assault, and thinks maybe babbling hadn’t been the smartest tactic. But hell if he's going to stop now. 

“Did we just have a Gilmore Girls moment? I always pegged you for a Jesse type, what with the jackets and the brooding. Even though it was Luke doing the pushing…” Stiles says, taking a moment to mentally figure out who would be who in this scenario.

Derek just shakes his head and walks away. At least, Stiles thinks, it’s marginally cooler in the water, and he’s happy to just sink under the surface for a second and float.

+++  
 _SEPTEMBER_  


When Stiles was little, his therapist used to tell him about something that some old psychologist came up with about ‘quality worlds’ that they used a lot with kids like him. If something or somebody wasn’t in his world, or presented a threat to it, then it was way outside of his focus and he just found it too hard to care.

He’s forgotten most of it over time, but the part about the people he accepts into his world stuck with him for a long time after.

His parents and Scott. Lydia somehow snaked her way in without trying, and he and Scott used to have this friend who Stiles thought he was going to marry in the off-chance that whole Lydia thing didn’t work out. That was his quality world.

In the summer between 7th and 8th grade, their friend moved away without any warning. Lydia and Jackson started dating in 8th grade. When he was thirteen and seven months old, his mom died. 

People didn’t get so accepted into his quality world after that. He was just fine with his dad and Scott. Lydia was welcome if she ever decided she wanted in. 

Werewolves made it a hell of a lot more complicated.

 

Stiles expects the first day back from summer break to be a general shade of horrible, but lunch manage to create an entirely new color on the spectrum of “worst half-hour periods of Stiles’ life.”

They arrive in pieces. Stiles and Isaac arrive together first after their shared 4th period, and wordlessly take their seats at the table they had all spent most of last year ensuring the rest of the school knew belonged to them. 

Scott and Allison arrive a minute later, followed by Lydia after another. Boyd doesn’t show until lunch is half over, his nose buried in a book. 

Stiles picks pathetically at his fries, but doesn’t eat. Boyd doesn’t look up from his book once, and Lydia’s already managed to occupy herself with math homework and doesn’t say a word. Every once in a while she’ll huff, or erase something with more vigor than Stiles thinks is really necessary, but he’s not going to be the one to say anything about it. Scott and Allison occasionally chat quietly at the corner of the table. 

Isaac stares at the empty chair next to Stiles the entire period, his eyes glazed over and unfocused. Stiles finds himself following Isaac’s line of sight for a lot of the lunch period, his eyes falling wordlessly on the chair next to him. His chest feels tighter everytime it happens, but he doesn’t realize he’s doing it each time until he feels the pain in his chest all over again. Five minutes before the bell’s set to ring, Stiles stands up and leaves without a word. 

Stiles hasn’t thought about his quality world in a long time. Once the werewolf thing started getting too complicated and screwing it all up, he’d mostly dropped it altogether, chalking it up to a silly theory written by an old man who didn’t have to deal with the grey areas between life and werewolves.

But it flits across his mind when Isaac finds him halfway through the next class period. He’s sitting against a wall in the locker room, trying to focus on keeping his breathing as even as possible. Isaac says nothing, just sits down next to Stiles on the ground. Isaac puts his arm around him, pulling him so his head is buried in his chest, and they sit out the rest of the period together trying to gather up enough energy to finish out the day. 

The easy part was identifying the things that _weren’t_ accepted into his world. Gerard had been more of a monster than Jackson was, and the Alphas had been a threat from the start. Peter only provided more danger than he did help or information.

Anything more than that though, and it started to get difficult. He could have let Jackson die when he was the Kanima, because he was a threat with nothing to give in return. Derek was a pain in his ass who went around turning teenagers into werewolves with seemingly no thought to consequence (see: Jackson the abominable lizard-man), and it _had_ taken Stiles a long time to get over being slammed against his steering wheel.

But then Jackson was sort of alright in the end, and even Stiles wasn’t one to invalidate what had happened in the warehouse with Lydia. And Derek, in what Stiles will always consider the most obnoxious thing he could have possibly done, somehow weaseled his way in and didn’t just stop with Stiles’ quality world, but went straight for the hollow of his chest instead.

He thinks about it, sitting on the floor of the locker room with Isaac, of all people - and thinks that if he still put much stock in the psychological theories he learned when he was seven, he would think that his quality world could have ended up a whole lot worse.

+++  
 _JUNE_  


"Cheater!” Scott attempts to yell, volume hindered by his labored breathing.

“How could I possibly have cheated, McCall?” Jackson says, rolling his eyes and absently thumping Scott on the back. Stiles supposes it’s his attempt at helping Scott catch his breath, but it mostly just looks like he’s hurting the process. 

Scott shrugs Jackson’s hand off of him and glares. Which means that he Scott-glares, which is mostly just a weird kind of stare and makes him look like a mildly-irritated puppy. It’s one of Stiles’ favorite things about Scott. “You knocked that branch off of that tree and threw it at me in the middle of the race!“

“Oh yeah, then why don’t I see a mark where it supposedly hit you?”

“Because I healed, dumbass!” Scott says. Jackson rolls his eyes, and even Stiles can hear him mutter “nice excuse” under his breath. Stiles would think that Scott would be used to Jackson pulling that card by now, as he has been for years, but he still growls in response. “Fine, come on! I’ll show you exactly where- “

Stiles rolls his eyes and tunes out, not really caring about the politics of Scott and Jackson’s tri-daily races. It’s a thing they’ve started to do, and Stiles usually only takes interest when he gets to choose the punishment for the loser, which they’ve stopped letting him do after that thing with the bees.

Instead, he lays back in the grass and puts his arms above his head. He closes his eyes and enjoys the sun on his body. After a few minutes, something large and imposing casts and shadow over his body. 

“You’re blocking my sun, gigantor," Stiles says, not bothering to open his eyes. He can practically see Derek’s eye roll through his own closed eyes, and smiles to himself as he hears Derek shuffle around to sit down next to him. 

“How’d the race argument go?” Stiles asks. 

“They’re holding a rematch. They’ve enlisted Erica to referee,” Derek answers. Stiles can hear the tone of amusement underneath the words, a skill he’d determinedly taught himself through a combination of sheer perseverance and spending way more time with Derek than is probably advisable. 

“Oh, that’ll end well,” Stiles says. He opens his eyes finally, and sees Derek looking down at him. He’s cross-legged, his knee lightly touching Stiles’ side, right above his hip. Stiles holds his gaze for a while, biting absently at his lip. 

The looks used to confuse him, and maybe scare him a little – like he thought they meant that Derek was trying to decide which piece of him to tear apart first. He’s learned to accept them, in time. They still confuse him, but he takes it for what it is. Derek’s a starer. He stares. Stiles is cool with it, as long as it means Derek isn’t planning on how to prepare him for a meal. 

And if he’s being honest with himself, which he isn’t, he’s just glad that Derek hasn’t stopped staring yet. Stiles is just glad he’s apparently something worth being looked at.

So this happens. Sometimes they just sit, and they stare. Isaac usually calls them out on it after a few minutes, but he’s currently too preoccupied with some kind of furry animal over by the water. 

It was probationary at first, this whole thing. Scott was still wary about being part of Derek’s pack, but in the end he knew it was better than trying to handle both Peter and the Alphas on his own, and it was definitely easier than trying to divide Isaac’s loyalty. 

Scott wasn’t expecting to stay in the pack after the danger left town, but Derek grabbed on. He finally had a functional pack, and Stiles had a feeling that it would have to be ripped from his dead body if anybody wanted to break it up. He pulled Scott in and refused to let go. 

He was determined. He opened up, told them about Kate, and New York, and Laura. Stiles was pretty sure it was ready to kill him at times, but he figured that of every hell Derek had been pulled into and managed to come out the other side, this was just another to add to the list. He thought Derek looked stronger afterward anyway. Looser, warmer, and he stood up a little straighter.

He bought a house, started picking the car-less up from school, gave them keys, offered his touch and his words a little more. 

He became the alpha for real this time, and Stiles thinks it’s a good look on him.

Derek did what it took, and now he’s staring down at Stiles with more warmth in his eyes than Stiles knows what to do with. He takes it all anyway, just glad that it has somewhere to go.

After another moment, Stiles closes his eyes and hums contently. He can hear the three arguing over somewhere to his right. He wiggles and nudges his side further against Derek’s knee. When he suspects he’s got Derek’s attention, he grins wickedly. 

“Ten dollars says there are wolf tears within the next three minutes,” Stiles says. He considers the snort Derek gives in response worthy enough that he doesn’t really care whether he wins the ten dollars or not.

He wins anyway.

+++  
 _JUNIOR YEAR_

Stiles remembers, in the immediate aftermath of defeating the alphas last winter, still standing over bodies and destruction, this one small thing. 

And it was. Small, he means. He would have forgotten, and anyone else wouldn't even have noticed, really, but it seemed to spark something. And then it just kept going.

All the same, as much as he's been known to curl up with Erica, or hip check Allison as he walks past her, or grab on to Scott's shoulders for mutual support, his tactility with Derek hadn't changed much since Derek gotten past his "let’s hurt Stiles" phase, which had really only lasted a short time, in hindsight. A wall, a steering wheel. It was all the same.

Stiles would consider that, in the time since, he and Derek had become friends. Good friends, even. Who spend time together willingly and save each others' lives on repeated occasions. It's kind of their thing. 

So when they're standing over the bodies of the alphas, Stiles hardly even thinks about it. 

One of the alphas had set a fire in a last ditch effort to throw Derek off his game. All it had succeeded in doing was angering Derek even more, but now that they were all coming down from the adrenaline high, Stiles could see that the smoke was starting to affect him - his body growing more tense by the second. 

And it feels like instinct to take a step closer to Derek and grab his hand. Derek's already got one hand on Boyd, and he's sure he would be reaching out for Isaac and Erica if Isaac weren't already at Scott's side, and Erica at Stiles'. 

He can feel Derek start to calm once his hand is entwined with Stiles', and the rest of them start to do the same in response. Erica sags into Stiles' side a little, and Jackson deflates into a laying position from where he's already hunched over on the ground. 

It's natural enough at the time, to squeeze Derek's hand and feel him tighten his grip in return, that Stiles doesn't spare it too much thought later aside from a stray acknowledgement of how well their hands had fit together, but Stiles pushes that one away as quick as it comes. 

There’s a shift after that though, just a little. Derek's more likely to reach out to Stiles, to grab his shoulder in acknowledgement of something, or run a hand over the top of his head. It's not out of the ordinary for how the rest of them function these days, but Stiles grabs onto it and doesn't let go. 

It shifts again after Peter's gone.

Stiles had taken this one personally, determined to have Peter gone after what he had done to Derek, and to Lydia, and how Stiles can still feel his breath on his wrist.

Stiles and Lydia had both been the ones to throw the final Molotov cocktails this time around. They’d spent weeks perfecting it to react correctly with wolfsbane, ensuring that there was no coming back this time. Stiles is pretty sure he’ll have smoke in his lungs and flames haunting his vision for months, and he almost regrets taking so much initiative in this, not sure how to handle how intensely personal it had felt this time around. 

But, he thinks as he sees Peter in his mind’s eye, maybe not.

The Sheriff isn't home when Stiles' gets back, covered in blood and ash and what he thinks might be pieces of Peter, but he left the TV on in the living room. Stiles is too tired to pay it any attention, but a streak of orange gets caught in his peripheral vision as he makes his way up the stairs. 

He nearly gives himself whiplash turning his head to look at the screen properly, and is assaulted with an image of a campfire in a commercial for some sports store or another. 

And he doesn’t see it coming, but it feels suddenly like the fire is all around him, licking at his skin and filling his lungs and he feels hot and uncomfortable and he can't breathe. He barely makes it up and stairs and to the bathroom in time to throw up in the toilet. 

He breathes heavily and sheds himself of his his ruined hoodie and shirt and presses his burning back against the cool porcelain of the bathtub. 

Peter deserved it. And the alphas, and whatever else has gotten in their way, but it doesn't change the fact that his skin is on fire and his lungs won't work through the invisible smoke filling them. 

And he can’t figure it out, because Peter got what was coming to him, but he was Derek’s uncle. And there’s just something about family that Stiles can’t seem to shake. Crazed murderers or not.

He's not sure whether he’s surprised or not to find Derek standing by his bed when he finally makes it to his room, but he’s too bone-tired to do anything but stand in his doorway and raise his eyebrows a little.

“You left the front door unlocked. No window necessary,” Derek says. Stiles exhales a little heavier, like a makeshift laugh, because it’s funny. Derek’s funny. Stiles is glad about that. Peter was funny, but in a cruel way. He used others as his jokes, each body a punchline.

Derek doesn't say anything after that, and they stand on their respective sides of the room for a while in the silence.

"I lit him on fire," Stiles says, his eyes going unfocused on the wall behind Derek. 

Derek just nods, and doesn't say anything.

"Twice," Stiles adds. Derek nods again. 

"Does the smell ever go away?" Stiles asks, the intonation one of a question, but he probably already has the answer. He asks anyway though, because he knows Derek will know. 

"Eventually," he says quietly. 

Before Stiles knows it, he's crossed the room and wrapped his arms around Derek as tight as he possibly can. Stiles doesn't think about it this time either, but it feels like instinct. Like before, but with something _more_. Derek grips him back with just as much force, his face buried in Stiles' neck, because he gets it.

Stiles loses time, and has no idea how long they've been standing there when he finally moves a little. Derek lifts his head, and Stiles leans his forehead against Derek's cheek. Stiles feels his breath catch a little when Derek's hand starts rubbing patterns against his back, suddenly aware that he's not wearing a shirt. He can't bring himself to care though, content with Derek's fingers softly pulling the tension from his spine and the air from the open window cooling his fire-warmed skin. 

"Everyone’s okay?" Stiles asks eventually. He feels Derek nod against where Stiles' forehead is still leaning against him. 

Stiles breathes out a sigh of relief. He detaches himself from Derek, somewhat reluctantly, and flops down face first on his bed, ready to sleep for the next two weeks. He rolls over so he's on his back, and looks up at Derek. 

"So I think I've got a thing about fire now," he says conversationally, like it's the weather or what movie they should watch next weekend. "We should get jackets."

He's not expecting a reaction from Derek, but to his surprise he chuckles a little, and Stiles feels his lips forming a smile for the first time all night. They don’t equate, not really. But it’s another Hale gone to the flames, and there’s something in that.

They fall silent again, and Stiles is nearly asleep when he hears Derek start to shuffle back towards the door. 

"Wait," Stiles calls out. He scoots over a little and turns on his side, facing Derek. "There's room," he says, in lieu of something more pathetic-sounding. 

He thinks Derek understands though, because he only hesitates for a moment before taking off his jacket and shoes and laying down on the space next to Stiles. 

Stiles is far too gone and exhausted for self preservation or rational thought, and thinks that that all flew out the window with the year-long hug anyway, and reaches out to grab Derek's hand. Stiles buries his face in Derek's neck and little and lets out a deep breath. 

After a minute, he feels Derek relax, though his grip on Stiles' hand only gets tighter. They sleep most of the next day, and they never really talk about it, but there isn't really much to be said, all things considered.

+++  
 _SEPTEMBER_

All of the words leave Stiles in a rush, as though a wrecking ball had slammed into his chest, forcing its way straight through and leaving a gigantic hole in its wake. Every word he might ever want to say is pushed out of his chest in a huge gust of empty air. It takes several moments to regain his ability to breathe, but he thinks the ability to speak might need a little more time. 

He feels somebody trying to pull him away, grabbing at his arms to loosen his grip, but he only tightens his fingers around her wrists like a vice, refusing to let her go. She’s still warm; she just needs a minute. She only needs a moment and she’ll be fine. His vision blurs, and the world around him is dizzy, spinning as though he had just stepped off the teacups at Disneyland, but without the bright colors and laughter around him to anchor him back to the real world. There’s only her black jacket under his hands and the darkness of the woods around them and the way his vision is tunneling, and he can’t find any color anywhere, and there’s certainly no laughter. 

Nobody in the world could be laughing right now. He thinks the entire planet has gone dark and silent, just for this. For his knees digging into the soft dirt under him, staining his jeans, and for the leaves that got tangled in her hair, and for the bit of gold that’s lingering in her eyes.

“Stiles,” he hears vaguely from behind him. “Stiles, you need to let her go,” the voice is soft and familiar, as though he’s heard it a thousand times, like he could hear it in his sleep and roll towards it in his bed, arms outstretched to pull it closer without ever needing to open his eyes. 

But Stiles ignores it, can’t place it to a face. It’s not until fingers cover his own, covered in dirt and slightly bigger than his own, that the people around him begin to register. The fingers are warm, and he knows them just as well as he thinks he knows the voice. 

“Stiles, let go,” He thinks the fingers and the voice go together, and it clicks when he’s finally able to lift his head. Derek’s looking straight at him, and Stiles lets his hands fall from Erica’s body. 

He turns around to looks at Derek, whose mouth is moving furiously, but all he can hear is an obnoxious buzzing. He swats at it, trying to find Derek's voice again. 

He misses Derek's voice, and he tries to say so out loud as he attempts to ignore the buzzing. The noise only gets louder, and he opens his eyes. The light from his window assaults him immediately, and he slams his eyes shut before attempting to open them again. 

He rolls over and shuts off his alarm, sighing and staring blankly at the wall across from him. He lies still for a few moments, remembering the warmth of Erica's body in that last moment before he let Derek pull his hands off of her. 

He rolls out of bed, and starts to get ready for school.

+++  
 _JUNE_

Things go back to normal, after Peter. As normal as being surrounded by werewolves can be, which basically just entails ordering about three times the amount of food any other group would order, and paying extra close attention to the phases of the moon. Stiles gets an app on his phone, and obtains a minor groupon addiction.

Boyd insists on board game nights, though this only lasts a few weeks before people start complaining. Stiles tries to keep it alive as long as possible because Boyd was actually a worthy opponent in Monopoly, and Beacon Hills is severely lacking in those. 

Derek and Stiles, who don't really do normal, go back to being whatever. They were friends before, and that never really changes, but it got to the point where Stiles found it weirder if there _wasn't_ some part of him and Derek that was touching the other - a shoulder, a knee, and hand on the neck or back or wrist or ankle. 

Stiles took to napping or just _being_ in the places that were Derek's, where he knew Derek might join if he felt like it. Vice versa, Stiles' bedroom became fair game. Stiles wouldn't be surprised to come home from school and see Derek curled up on his bed, or just sitting at his desk reading or whatever. 

So it wasn't normal _per say_ , but it became so. Stiles thinks he likes this version of them better anyway, with no specific lines drawn and no labels to try and figure out what exactly it is they're doing. Because Stiles isn't Derek's beta, but Stiles isn't one to say no to cat naps. Or alpha naps. Of two. Alpha plus one. 

 

Three months after Peter, and a week into summer vacation, a woman is found murdered in her sleep, her kitchen window smashed in and her living room destroyed. 

The thing is, murders aren’t actually that common in Beacon Hills. There’s the occasional animal attack that’s an _actual_ animal attack, and the semi-regular robbery or two. But regular murders don’t just rampantly _happen_. 

Which is why Stiles is completely unsurprised to enter his room and find Derek standing by his desk, playing absently with the corner of a book, shoulder tight with tension. 

“I’m assuming you heard about the woman,” Stiles says, sinking heavily onto the edge of his bed.

Derek copies his motion and sits in Stiles' desk chair, spinning around to face him on the bed. “Do they know anything?”

“Not yet. My dad won’t tell me anything anyway. I caught a glimpse of the crime scene photos and they were pretty gruesome, but I didn’t get a good enough look to try and place it to a cause,” Stiles says, playing with the hem of his shirt. It’s been too hot this summer for anything more than just t-shirts, and he misses the comfort of multiple layers.

He knows what Derek’s thinking. It’s what they’re all thinking. He wishes he had gotten a better look at the pictures or that he’d gotten his dad to give him more information. He needs to know, needs to plan and prepare for whether this is something out of the sheriff department’s league and more up their alley.

Stiles sighs and scrubs his hands over his head, thinks it’s getting about time for another haircut. “Maybe it was actually an animal attack?” Stiles says, perking up hopefully. 

“In her house? Through the kitchen window?” Derek asks, looking at Stiles incredulously. 

“It could happen,” Stiles says defensively. Derek just raises his eyebrows at him, and Stiles flaps his hands. “Shut up, just let me have this.”

Derek shrugs and gestures a hand at Stiles, as though willing him to keep with the delusion if he so desires. 

"Just let me know if you hear anything," Derek says, standing up and walking out, a hand clasping briefly over Stiles’ neck as he passes. 

 

“Do you think your mom happened to overhear anything at the hospital?” Stiles asks, spinning himself in circles in Scott’s desk chair. 

“No, I already asked. She’s been covering for a nurse up in the baby ward,” Scott says. “She’s on maternity leave.”

“Apt,” Stiles mutters. He clicks his tongue a few times, tapping his fingers against the back of the chair. 

He hounds his dad for information all week, but doesn’t manage to get even a scrap. He mopes around the house, hoping his dad’ll take pity on him, but that yields even fewer results. 

Finally, after three days of failed attempts, he enlists Erica to help him sneak into his dad’s office to find the case file. They wait until he leaves for lunch, and walk confidently towards his office. He theorizes that if they just look purposeful, they shouldn’t have any problem. He waves at Laurie and keeps walking, Erica right behind him. 

“Ah, ah, ah. Sorry, Stiles, your dad said not to let you in,” Laurie shrugs, looking apologetic.

He stops in his tracks, and Erica only barely manages not to run into his back. He opens and closes his mouth several times, before frantically shaking his head and managing an indignant. “What. Why?”

“Your dad said that you’d been snooping around this case more than usual. He said he didn’t want to know why, but that he wasn’t going to encourage you and that you aren’t allowed into his office without him there,” She gives him a pitying smile before turning her back on him and heading to the copy room, leaving Stiles gaping in the lobby. 

“Seriously, nothing? Not even a cause of death?” Stiles asks two hours later, wishing very much that he had more hair than he already does so that he could pull it out in frustration. “Nothing animal attack-esque? Claw marks? Teeth? Some fur left at the scene of the crime? Anything?”

Officer Barish just gives Stiles a blank look. “Give it up, Stiles. Go home. Why are you so interested in this case anyway?’

“No reason,” Stiles growls, throwing an arm above his head in frustration and spinning around to leave. He finds Erica waiting outside the door, and together they head for the main entrance. 

“That was my last guy. Absolutely nothing. Did you get anything?” Stiles asks her, unlocking his Jeep and hopping in. 

“Nope, they wouldn’t move an inch. I did get a few numbers from the cadets though,” she grins, the big scary one with the teeth. 

“God, I’m afraid for the male population of this town,” Stiles says, backing out of the parking lot and heading for the road.

 

“How funny would it be if it – “ Erica starts as they’re sitting in his room later, strategizing a Plan G. 

“If you say anything about vampires, I’m going to kill you in your sleep,” Stiles says, throwing the ball he’d been tossing against the wall at her. There are very few ways to actually threaten somebody approximately three-hundred times stronger than you, but he figures there’s nothing wrong with keeping them on their toes. 

She just grins and bounces the ball off of his head.

Stiles is eating breakfast two days later when his dad sits down across from him with a cup of coffee, announcing that they’ve arrested a guy.

“The woman’s ex-boyfriend. A love triangle, or something,” his dad sighs, rubbing at his forehead. “We found evidence of pre-meditation, and plans to go after her current boyfriend next.”

Stiles just stares at him with his spoon halfway to his mouth, forgotten. “So that’s…that’s it. Just a murder? A regular, crazy killer guy murder? Over _jealousy_?” Stiles asks, dropping his spoon with a clang. 

“Well, I guess. But I don’t think you should be speaking of it so flippantly, crazy killer guy or not, she was still innocent,” his dad says, taking a sip of his coffee. 

“Right, yeah. Of course. Crazy killer guy was crazy, she didn’t deserve that. S’gotta suck,” Stiles says, no longer hungry. He cleans out his bowl quickly and his dad gets up. 

“I’ve been up all night, so I’m going to go get a few hours of sleep before heading back down to the station. You alright?” He asks. 

“Yeah, fine. Peachy,” Stiles says, already halfway to the door. He gives his dad a salute and a quick, “sleep well” before he’s out the door. 

 

“Derek!” he yells, barging through Derek’s front door. “Derek, it’s okay. Just a murder! A normal, human, love-triangle fueled murder. Of humans, by humans.”

He looks around the front entryway, and finally sees Derek emerge and stand at the top of the stairs, wearing nothing but pajama pants and a sleepy look on his face. 

“It’s okay, it’s all okay,” Stiles says. Derek starts walking down the stairs, and Stiles closes the front door behind him, leaning back against it. He smiles and closes his eyes, laughing to himself a little. “Fuck, this is great. I mean, not for the girl, but. It’s just humans.”

He opens his eyes and Derek’s at the foot of the stairs. He still hasn’t said anything, but Stiles can’t shut up, a different kind of energy running through him than usual. Derek looks shocked, like what he’s heard hasn’t quite registered. Stiles is just happy, laughter bubbling in his throat. “It’s not a new monster. It’s not another assault on our lives and it’s not Peter 3.0, and it’s not a Kanima or a fucking vampire or anything. It’s just humans.”

And Stiles chuckles to himself at that. “Just humans, fucking up and feeling too much and letting it drive them crazy,” he’d been lost in his own world, looking up at the ceiling, painted crisp and white and almost nothing like the ash of the Hale house, but he finally turns his gaze back to Derek, who had kept walking forward, and they’re extremely close. Derek’s eyes are dark, and he licks his lips. He hasn’t said anything since Stiles got there, but he doesn’t need to. It’s written on his face, the relief visible in every line. 

Stiles just smiles, and they look at each other for a long moment, quiet save for Stiles’ occasional breathless chuckles. Looking, but not touching, and Stiles decides he needs to fix that. He reaches out, his hand landing lightly on Derek’s side, right under his ribs.

Derek looks down at his hand briefly before bringing his eyes back up to Stiles' face. They're close enough that Stiles can feel Derek's breath on his cheek, and he's pretty certain, in that moment, that if he were to lean in and close the gap between their lips, that it would be okay. That Derek would lean even closer in return and it would all work out, and _god_ Stiles wants to. 

But he isn't sure exactly how far this thing is able to go yet, so he just smiles softly and says. "There's a line here, right?" 

Derek thinks about it for a second, his face deliberating. After a moment, he nods. "That's probably for the best." 

It's a fuzzy line, and Stiles isn't actually sure where exactly it starts and ends but he feels good about it. They've got time to toy with it, and move it around a bit, and god, Stiles looks forward to seeing just how thin it can get.

+++  
 _SEPTEMBER_

Two weeks into school, Stiles receives a text on Saturday morning from Scott. It just says _he’s back_ and in seconds, Stiles is up and shoving a piece of toast in his mouth while tying his shoes. He’s out the door within 5 minutes. It’s just barely dawn, and why the hell Jackson would decide to come back at ass o’clock in the morning, Stiles doesn’t know, but he wants to simultaneously punch him in the face and pat him on the back because at least now the sour look on everybody’s face can fade a little. 

Everybody’s standing in the foyer when Stiles arrives, crowding around Jackson who looks like he’s about to collapse. Most of them are still in their pajamas, obviously having rushed over here as quickly as Stiles had. 

Stiles visually checks Jackson over, though seems to be physically fine. He looks pale and tired, but no worse than that.

Stiles grabs Scott by the arm and drags him away from the others a little. “Did he tell anyone he was back?”

“No, we all just knew,” Scott says. “I felt it a a few hours ago, but wasn’t really sure. Derek said he’d been feeling him getting closer all night.”

Stiles nods, looking through the doorway at Jackson. He’s clinging to Lydia like he’ll fall over if he were to let go, but he’s listening to something that Boyd is saying, nodding along silently. 

“Has he said anything?” Stiles asks. 

“Not really. He said he’d been staying with some family friends in San Francisco, but he didn’t say anything about why. I think he probably just needed to get away from the craziness of the last few weeks. I think everybody kind of understands,” Scott shrugs. 

Stiles bites at his bottom lip, his eyes finding Derek’s where he’s standing behind Jackson, his hands on his shoulders. Derek looks tired, but a bit of the tension from the last few weeks seems to be bleeding slowly from his face.

Stiles had come with the complete intention of chewing Jackson out for leaving when he did, but the group seems more relaxed than they have in weeks, and Stiles can’t help leeching onto the feeling as well. The others have apparently gotten something off of him, a feeling or whatever that they do with their wolf-empathy thing, so Stiles supposes that’ll have to be enough for him for now too. 

“Jackson,” he says. Jackson looks up at him, unsure. Stiles really doesn’t know what he should say, or what he even _wants_ to say, so instead he just nods. Jackson tilts his head in acknowledgement, and turns his head back into Lydia’s neck. Stiles sits down on the couch next to where Allison’s curled up, still in her pajamas. He grabs her ankle and squeezes a little. She smiles at him. 

They have silent communication for a second, and Stiles thinks that she’s just as confused by this as he is, but like him, far too tired and over it all to question it too much. They sit instead, happy enough to just sit and doze as the sun finishes rising around them, enjoying the first moment of calm they’ve managed to have as a group in weeks.

+++  
 _JUNE_

It’s a weird feeling. It’s a weird _thing_ , this Derek thing. Stiles isn’t entirely sure what to do with it. He doesn’t really think there’s a whole lot of precedent for something like this - he doesn’t know many people he knows who have experience in this exact area, Allison and Lydia excluded. And if he does, then he thinks he needs to have a serious talk with the people he knows for withholding information valuable to both his love life and his life-life. They seem to run hand in hand these days.

So it’s weird. It’s not something he can look up online, and he doesn’t think a vaguely-worded question to the librarian downtown is going to end with a book in his hands entitled _Non-Relationships with Werewolves: How to Make Claws Work for_ You. 

After a few weeks though, he finds that claws are relatively sparse, and never directed at him. There’s also no growling, or teeth, or red eyes. The pack thing stopped being strange a long time ago, once he realized that a pack is basically just a group of friends with added leather and ridiculously unquantifiable attractiveness. Stiles would almost feel like he’s been ripped off, except that when he thinks about it, this non-relationship is kind of one of the more normal parts of his high school career. As fucked up as that is.

In the end, he just googles normal relationship advice and ends up surfing the _Cosmopolitan_ website for longer than he’d like to admit. He spends an afternoon listening to the librarian tell a story about this guy she kind-of-not-really dated in high school, because he was being sent to war and they didn’t want to start anything if he had to leave. It’s vaguely related, give or take a war or two, but Stiles mostly just likes the story and spends the rest of the day smiling.

+++  
 _SEPTEMBER_

“I bring sandwiches!” Stiles says in greeting when steps through the doorway. He sets them down on the table and pulls his jacket tighter around him. It’s the coolest day of the year so far, and Stiles can feel fall lingering just around the corner.

“Excellent,” Jackson says, reaching for a turkey one. 

“Where’s Derek?” Stiles asks, grabbing one for himself before they’re all devoured by ravenous wolves.

Isaac just shrugs and takes a bite of his own sandwich. Stiles would be annoyed, except it’s the first time he’s seen Isaac outside of his room in days. He turns to Boyd, wordlessly asking him instead.

“He’s probably out in the woods,” Boyd answers. “Is Scott coming?”

“Nah, he’s got a math test to study for, and then he’s doing something with Allison,” Stiles shrugs, ignoring the stinging reminder of how much more effort it takes these days to get them all under the same roof for even five minutes. 

“Lydia’s working on college essays,” Jackson offers, mouth full. 

“Well then,” Stiles nods. “Looks like it’s just us, boys.”

Isaac looks like he’d rather be anywhere else, and Jackson finishes the last of his sandwich in a single bite, already getting up from his seat. “Actually, I have to go.”

“Of course you do,” Stiles says. 

Jackson nods, grabbing another sandwich and disappearing without another glance. He hasn’t stuck around for more than fifteen minutes since his return the other week, and acts mostly as though he hadn’t left at all.

Stiles looks at the other two, putting on the biggest smile he can bring himself to. Isaac looks at them both briefly before getting up and leaving without a word. 

Stiles looks at Boyd, who looks back, his expression apologetic before returning to the huge book in front of him. Stiles abandons his sandwich and slumps in his seat, defeated.

 

+++

“I’ve been finding some weird scents from the east side of the preserve the past few days, so I’m going to need some people out there tonight to keep an eye out,” Derek says at the later in the week, his tone implying heavily for volunteers.

Stiles looks around at the others. Scott’s looking down at his feet, Jackson’s pretending to be extremely interested in Lydia’s sweater, and Boyd’s looking straight at Derek as though daring him to tell him he has to be the one to go out tonight. Allison couldn’t make it because of some family thing or another.

Isaac’s pretty much just stopped appearing altogether. 

Stiles sighs, taking pity on the others, and raises his hand. “I can check it out for a minute. Dad’s out tonight.” 

“Stiles – “ Scott starts, speaking for the first time since they all arrived.

“I’ll be fine, Scott,” Stiles says, silencing Scott before he can finish. Scott leans back against the couch, crossing his arms across his chest. Derek looks like he wants to say something, but bites his tongue and lets out a long breath instead.

“I’m done. Go back to what you were doing,” Derek says, turning around and heading into the kitchen. 

The other four disperse around the house as fast as possible, but Stiles lingers, picking up the discarded glasses from the coffee table and bringing them into the kitchen. He places them in the sink and leans against the counter, looking at Derek and popping his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

Derek rolls his shoulders and looks at the ceiling, his expression a special shade of miserable that he reserves specifically for the days that they manage to get more than three of them in the house at once.

Stiles is about to say something when Derek shifts his focus to the ground and sighs, pushing himself off of the counter he’s leaning against. 

“11 o’clock,” he says, exiting the room and heading upstairs, leaving Stiles alone in the kitchen. 

 

“There’s nothing here, Derek,” Stiles says sadly, rubbing at his eyes. “We’ve been out here for hours and there hasn’t even been as much as a squirrel.”

Derek doesn’t respond, though that's not unusual. It doesn’t mean Stiles finds it any less annoying, and he huffs loudly in response to the silence.

“Great,” Stiles says to himself, kicking at a small branch with the toe of his wet shoe. He licks his lips, glaring at Derek’s back for a long moment before spinning around in frustration, arms flailing above his head. “Look, can I go? I’ve got school in the morning.” 

Derek doesn’t say anything, but his head moves slightly to the left, which Stiles takes as permission to leave. He turns on a heel without saying anything else and makes his way back to his jeep. 

He’s just getting into bed, finally in dry clothes for the first time in hours, when his phone buzzes with a text from Derek. He takes a moment to marvel at how strange a sight it's become to see Derek’s name at the top of his inbox - his phone automatically deleted their message history after going too long without sending or receiving anything. 

_same place - next week_ , it says. Stiles turns his phone over without replying, and lays awake for a long time.

+++  
 _JULY_

“Why is it a thousand million degrees?” Stiles complains, laying out like a starfish on the cool hardwood of the living room. 

“It is not a thousand million degrees," Derek says, walking into the kitchen and handing Scott a cold coke. Scott immediately presses against his face, sighing in cool relief. 

“Aha, I made you say thousand million,” Stiles laughs, pointing towards the ceiling in a manner that is supposed to be emphasis or something. “Hey, why does he get a coke?” Derek rolls his eyes and returns to the kitchen without replying. 

“The last thing you need is caffeine, Stilinski,” Erica says from her perch by the open window. 

“Oh, come on,” Stiles argues. “It’s way too hot to be bouncing off the walls, anyway.” Erica just ignores him.

Stiles reluctantly stands up and pads to the kitchen. Derek’s the only one in there, leaning against the counter next to the fridge. He sticks a leg out in front of the door when Stiles tries to open it. 

“Are you serious?” Stiles asks, trying in vain to pull the refrigerator door open despite the blockade.

Derek just nods and crosses his arms, looking defiant. Stiles stops pulling at the door and stands in front of Derek, mimicking his position by crossing his arm and trying to look defiant in return. 

“You’re like a four year old,” he tells Derek. He just lifts an eyebrow in response, and Stiles huffs. “I’m eighteen in six months, I am perfectly at liberty to have a coke if I want to.” 

Derek just gives him an amused look and Stiles groans. “You are the worst.”

“So I’ve heard,” Derek deadpans. “By you. About six times a day.”

Stiles rolls his eyes and looks around the room, thinking. He looks at Derek again and licks his lips, finding an opening. 

"What is it going to take to make you give it up?" Stiles asks, taking a step closer to Derek. 

"Nothing. You're not getting one," Derek says. But Stiles takes one more step, so their bodies are nearly touching, and he can hear Derek's voice drop an octave and his eyes fall to Stiles' lips.

"Really?" He asks, his lips just grazing Derek's jaw. Stiles’ new favorite game is playing with their line. He figured a while ago that he might as well have fun with it, especially when given such a flimsy excuse to do so. He has a feeling this was Derek’s intention anyway, and Stiles would be lying if he said he wasn’t interested in seeing how far it can go before something snaps.

It’s like Russian Roulette, only when the gun goes off there will hopefully be more kissing and less dying. Though to be fair, it’s always kind of a toss up in this town.

He starts to feel Derek’s crossed arms loosen, and Stiles can't help his lips quirking into a small smile against Derek's jaw. Derek moves his head so his own lips are against Stiles' temple. 

“Not going to work,” Derek says against his skin, an inch from his ear. Stiles can feel Derek’s arms beginning to inch toward his waist all the same.

Stiles hums against Derek’s skin, ‘We’ll see about that,” he says, before closing the remaining distance between them and placing his hand on the back of Derek’s neck. He hovers over Derek's bottom lip for a moment before moving his attentions to Derek’s neck. He drags his lips along his adam’s apple and across his jawline, making his way up to the soft spot just below Derek’s ear. Derek immediately becomes more pliant at that, and Stiles tucks that information away for later. Stiles presses his advantage to move him a few more inches away from the fridge. He knows there’s probably a large part of Derek that’s willingly giving in, but that just makes him feel even better, if he’s being honest.

For a moment, Stiles debates how badly he really wants that soda, and weighs the pros and cons of lying down with a nice, cool can of coke on a sweltering summer day, or staying where he is, comfortable between Derek’s legs with his hands slowly making his way underneath Stiles’ t-shirt and making patterns with his fingertips. 

In the end, his pride wins out, and he uses his foot to open the door to the fridge. He places a lightning quick peck on Derek’s lips before darting away, grabbing a coke and making his way to the other side of the kitchen. 

“Hah!” Stiles says, thoroughly appreciating Derek’s flushed face and heavy eyes. He appreciates the dazed look on Derek’s face the most though, a pleasant mix of confusion and defeat. 

“I let you win,” Derek says once he regains composure. 

“Oh, sure,” Stiles teases, cracking open his can and taking a long sip. Victory tastes even better when it’s filled with corn syrup and caffeine. A victory is a victory, thrown fight or not.

Derek hums, folding his arms and crossing the room to the door. “See if I let you kiss me again, and then we’ll see who won,” Derek says, entering into the living room. 

“Oh, please,” Stiles calls after him, rolling his eyes. He takes another drink of his soda and smiles to himself.

+++  
 _OCTOBER_

The patrols become a weekly thing. They become wetter and colder as the year bounds deeper into Fall, and with each passing week, Stiles becomes less and less sure what it is exactly that they’re out there to do. 

Derek doesn’t speak, and after a few weeks, Stiles stops trying himself. They sit in silence, and sometimes Derek doesn’t move for hours. Stiles debates bringing his homework out with him to at least get something done during the time they spend doing nothing in the woods, but gives it up after the first time he ends up with soaked math homework that he has to rewrite in the morning. 

He tries to occupy himself with games like counting the number of bugs under large rocks, or contemplating the possibility of a were-mosquito (he still refuses to accept the possibility of vampires). In the end, all of his thoughts inevitably end up circling around the last time he and Derek had spent this much time in the woods, either with the pack or alone. There was usually a lot more of Jackson and Scott arguing over who won which race, or Stiles scouting out good trees that would support both him and Derek without breaking, preparing for the day that they finally crossed their stupid line. 

More often than not, Stiles ends up falling asleep, leaning against a boulder or a tree trunk wondering if he can nap his way out of this horrible mess of autumn. 

+++

A few days from Halloween finds Stiles and Scott are sitting on Derek’s couch, debating whether or not they should humor Lydia by going to her party or if they’d prefer sitting in Scott’s room and getting high instead. 

“Lydia’s party will give me an excuse to wear my batman costume,” Stiles points out. Scott nods his head, conceding the point.

“We might be able to do both,” Scott says, tilting his head in thought. “We’d just have to get the timing right.”

Stiles hums and thinks about this for a moment. He’s about to reply when he sees Isaac enter the living room, standing awkwardly in the doorway like he’s not sure he’s allowed. 

Stiles freezes, his mouth open with a half-formed words on his lips. He hears Boyd and Lydia cease their conversation about like, herbs or roots or something, and Derek freezes where he’s standing in the doorway to the kitchen, a bag of chips crumpling in his hands. 

The room is silent for a long time, just taking in the sight of Isaac in the doorway. He looks showered and rested, and Stiles is has a bizarre urge to see if his hair is as soft as it looks when it’s all shiny and clean.

“Weren’t we supposed to talk about something?” Isaac says finally. That seems to break the seal, and everybody starts moving again. Boyd smiles wider than Stiles has seen in a very, _very_ long time, and Lydia’s eyes look suspiciously wet.

“Yeah, dude,” Scott says, breathlessly. He looks relieved and happy and his eyes look almost as wet as Lydia’s at the sight of Isaac joining them for the first time in months. Stiles scoots over on the couch and Isaac sits in the middle of him and Scott. 

Derek drops the chips on the coffee table and puts both hands on Isaac’s shoulders. Isaac ducks his head sheepishly, but Stiles can see a small smile spreading across his face.

“Right,” Derek says, releasing his grip on Isaac and sitting across them in an armchair. “Let’s get started.”

They don’t actually have that much to discuss, because the patrols haven’t been yielding any results, and the town has been quiet for months, but they find stuff to talk about anyway. Stiles keeps his shoulder pressed against Isaac’s the entire time, Scott doing the same on his other side.

+++  
 _JULY_

Scott had discovered a few months earlier by downing six shots of tequila on a dare that alcohol actually _does_ affect him, as long as it’s far enough removed from the full moon that his wolf senses aren’t so obnoxiously in the way of normal life things. 

So when he shows up at Stiles’ door an hour after the Sheriff leaves for a conference in Sacramento, a bag of weed in his hand and a huge smile on his face, it was only logical that they test that the effects of marijuana are the same as tequila. Obviously. 

Their heads are just starting to feel fuzzy when Isaac and Erica barge through the door, claiming that. “Isaac was coming back from the store and said he could smell what you two were doing from a block away. You know Derek won’t be happy.”

Isaac looks between them both for a moment and smirks.

“We want in,” he says, holding a bottle of Jack out from behind his back.

Twenty minutes later, Scott’s texting Allison to come over in between giggling with Isaac over Finstock’s latest foray into speech-making (his Independence Day jacket had mysteriously disappeared after championships, launching a quest for a new championship speech) and rolling another joint.

Allison arrives a little later, Jackson and Lydia in tow. He warms up to Jackson’s appearance quickly once he sees the bottle of rum he’s holding at his side. 

“I’m telling you, there’s no way vampires are real. That’s reaching into a whole new level of ridiculousness that I am just not okay with,” Stiles says, shaking his head and reaching for his glass of rum and coke. 

“Werewolves,” Erica says, pronouncing the word very slowly, as though he were a child unfamiliar with the concept of the supernatural. 

Stiles bats a hand at her. “Yes, I know. _Werewolves _. I know all about the werewolves, okay. But at least wolves are real animals, you know? So it’s like a Spiderman thing, right, like combining an animal with humans and ending up with like, mutant strength and an increased razor budget. But vampires? What animal would they even be from? Mosquitos? No, no way. There’s no way the gods of the supernatural or the powers that be or _whoever_ would be that cruel. And vampires are just silly, and I’d have to be way drunker than this to even begin to accept their existence. Try again in an hour, she-wolf.”__

__Erica rolls her eyes, but Stiles can see her mouth twist into a small smile. It took Stiles a while, but he'd eventually figured out that Erica doesn’t try to be a bitch, she just likes being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative. She likes seeing what people can offer her, what they can teach her and how far they’ll go to make her agree with what they’re saying. Stiles likes that about her, likes that she’ll always let him talk at her and he likes the challenge of making her understand where he’s coming from on things._ _

__Even if those things happen to be the absolute improbability of a vampire showing up in Beacon Hills. They can't all be winners._ _

__They work, and Stiles likes that they work. She likes that he’s the only one who’s figured it out, and likes that he doesn’t take offense when she calls his arguments half-assed and to “actually fucking try to convince me, Stilinski, come on” and hitting him upside the head. She indulges his words and knows how much effort he actually puts into the things he does or doesn’t say, when most people hardly even attempt to do the same. She gets that they _all know what it’s like to be missing something, and how much it means when somebody’s there to fill that hole, even if just for a minute.__ _

___He pokes her in the side and she twists away, a giggle escaping from where she’s got her cup pressed against her lips, lipstick smudging the edge. She winks at him and he grabs her hand._ _ _

___She sits back, her shoulder touching his, and they sit in a companionable silence for a while before dispersing to other areas of the room._ _ _

___“What the hell is going on here,” Stiles hears from somewhere that he thinks might be the doorway, but is far too fuzzy to know for sure. He turns his head, briefly afraid that it might be his dad home early for some reason. Instead he finds Derek standing, attempting to look as angry and menacing as possible. He hasn’t quite figured it out yet that they stopped being afraid of him a while ago, but Stiles is content let him live with the delusion._ _ _

___Boyd’s standing to Derek’s right, looking for all the world like he’s trying not to start laughing, covering his mouth behind his hand and glancing at Derek every few seconds._ _ _

___“Told you,” Stiles hears Erica laugh from the corner._ _ _

___“Calm down, officer,” Stiles says from his current spot on the floor. “We’re just having fun. Call it pack bonding if it makes you feel better.”_ _ _

___“Stiles, this isn’t funny. Do you realize what – “_ _ _

___“Oh shut up and join the fun,” Stiles interrupts with a wave of his hand. He picks up an unlit joint from the coffee table and holds it up. “Boyd, come. Free yourself from your Alpha-chains and enjoy what we here in normal teenage-land like to call the freedom to do stupid and illegal things.”_ _ _

___“In the Sheriff's house!” Scott adds, as though the added element of illegality will make Derek back down._ _ _

___“Come on, Boyd,” Erica chimes in. “School starts in a few weeks, this might be our last chance.”_ _ _

___Boyd just laughs outright at that and walks past Derek into the room, taking the joint from between Stiles’ fingers. “Sorry Derek, taking the night off.”_ _ _

___Stiles cackles and holds his hand out for Boyd to fist bump, grinning when Boyd’s much larger fist hits his own._ _ _

___Stiles hears Jackson cheer from the other side of the room. Isaac claps Boyd on the back and hands him a lighter._ _ _

___“Boyd, help me choose a song!” Allison says, waving him over from where she’s standing by Stiles’ ipod dock._ _ _

___“Derek, come on. Just sit down and relax. All’s been quiet on the monster front for like three months, and the chances of that changing in the next few hours are basically zero. You don’t need to have that stick up your ass 24/7, you know,” Stiles says, trying really hard not to laugh at Derek’s obvious discomfort._ _ _

___“Stiles -“ Derek starts, but Stiles shushes him before he can get any further._ _ _

___“Derek, sit your ridiculous ass down and have a drink. Or don’t have a drink, I don’t care. You either stay or you go, but standing by the door all night looking like somebody ate all your Scooby-snacks isn’t going to do anybody any favors,” Stiles says, standing up and physically pushing Derek to the couch. He considers it a personal victory that Derek lets himself be moved at all, because there’s no way Stiles could have done that himself, inebriated willpower or not._ _ _

___He shoves a throw pillow into Derek’s lap and shoves his own drink into Derek’s hand. “There, all better. Now drink and be merry. I’m gonna go get myself another drink since you so rudely stole mine.”_ _ _

___Stiles turns on his heel and heads to the kitchen to grab another glass, but he does manage to catch Derek’s confused expression, holding up the pillow with his free hand and looking at it like this is all it’s fault._ _ _

___“What kind of music do you have on here, Stilinski?” Boyd shouts from across the room when Stiles returns to the living room, new drink in one hand and a granola bar in the other._ _ _

___“The best kind,” Stiles shouts back, not sure whether to take a drink or a bite first. “Deal with it.”_ _ _

___Stiles plops himself down next to Derek and sets his drink on the coffee table in front of him. "Having fun yet?"_ _ _

___“Stiles, I really don’t th-“ Derek starts, but Stiles bats a hand at him, determined to never let Derek finish a sentence ever again._ _ _

___“Derek. Please, just this once. Have a drink, smoke a little. Relax. We’ve been safe for months, your betas are at the top of their game,” Derek’s mouth opens at that, about to say something, and Stiles holds his hand up to stop him. “They’re at the top of their game, intoxicated or not. The biggest crime recently was that murder and that embezzling case last month, and those weren’t exactly werewolf business. My dad’s in Sacramento for the weekend, and he won’t be back until Monday evening, at _best_ ,” Stiles says, leaning back and taking a drink. _ _ _

___“It’s the middle of summer. There’s no school, no work, no monsters crawling around in the sewers. We’ve got an empty house and plenty of booze. Please, just this once, let yourself be a kid. You’re not _actually_ a middle-aged man, you know.”_ _ _

___Derek doesn’t say anything, but Stiles does see the tension reluctantly leave his eyes a little, and notices that his shoulders relax the tiniest bit. Stiles smiles._ _ _

___“When was the last time you were at a party, anyway?”_ _ _

___Derek looks at him, and a year ago Stiles might have backed away at the sight of a Derek Hale side-eye, but now he mostly just wishes he had a camera. “A while,” Derek grunts._ _ _

___“Well let me reintroduce you to the ropes,” Stiles says, leaning forward and pointing over at Allison and Boyd, still debating over the music choice. “There’s music. Or, there _would_ be if they could ever just choose something.” _ _ _

___Boyd flips him off from across the room, and Stiles laughs. “There are drinks, which people drink. And then they feel happy and everything gets funnier and nicer and there’s not usually so much with the threats of throat-removal,” he gives Derek a pointed look at that, grabbing his hand and guiding his cup up to his mouth._ _ _

___Derek pulls his hand from Stiles’ grip and takes a sip of it himself. Stiles narrowly refrains from telling him what a good dog he is, but only because the throat-ripping thing is always kind of an option, despite what he’s convinced himself. The music finally starts up and he hears Lydia cheer from the other couch._ _ _

___“And then there’s dancing,” Stiles says, pointing to where Erica and Isaac have started moving in the middle of the room._ _ _

___Erica and Isaac have always had a strange kind of synchronicity, but watching them dance is mesmerizing. They move together in perfect time, their bodies falling together, their hands wandering from waists to ribs to necks to faces, bringing their every facet of their bodies closer and closer, before they pull back and start over. Stiles doesn’t need superpowers to see the sweat on Isaac’s neck, or to hear Erica’s breathing become heavier, or to see Isaac’s fingertips dancing on the waistline of her jeans._ _ _

___If an outside observer were watching, one would think that they would be hightailing it to the first bedroom in sight, but they all know better. Erica and Isaac are painfully platonic, but they like to put on a show and they like losing themselves in the bodies of those they trust._ _ _

___Stiles forgets about Derek until there’s a small lull in the song, when he hears his breath catch as Isaac’s lips reach Erica’s neck, her hands pulling at his shirt. Stiles blinks and suddenly it’s he and Derek on the floor, pulling at their clothes to pull the other closer, their bodies wrapping around one another as their mouths wander over whatever exposed skin they can find._ _ _

___The illusion falls away as Stiles slides his eyes over to Derek, noticing now just how close they’ve gotten during Erica and Isaac’s show. He can see the way Derek’s throat moves when he swallows his drink, and the way his tongue pokes out to retrieve drops of rum from his bottom lip._ _ _

___Stiles shakes his head and clears his throat, trying to regain his train of thought. “And usually at parties there’s a good chance that someone will end up crying in the bathroom or some guys will start fighting on the lawn. We’re just going to have to hope that doesn’t happen,” Stiles says, shrugging and taking a sip of his own drink._ _ _

___“I wouldn’t put it past Jackson and Scott to start wrestling on the carpet though,” Derek says quietly, his eyes focused behind Erica and Isaac._ _ _

___“Right, fair enough," Stiles agrees, nodding his head in time with the song, tapping his fingers against his thigh. He pretends not to notice the way Derek’s eyes leave the mock dancefloor in order to follow his the movement of his fingers. “Remind me to move the valuables upstairs later.”_ _ _

___“Like your dad isn’t used to coming home to broken lamps anyway,” Derek huffs, finishing off his drink._ _ _

___“Yeah, well,” Stiles says, not finishing his sentence and focusing instead on Derek’s hands wrapped around his now-empty cup and the way his chest moves when he breathes in the smoke-infected air. The way his eyes keep moving from Stiles’ hands to his eyes to his lips._ _ _

___Boyd and Lydia join them after a few minutes, Lydia handing Derek a new drink. Jackson and Scott do end up wrestling on the floor at some point, but they only manage to break a glass and knock an unlit candle to the ground, so Stiles isn’t too bothered in the end._ _ _

___The night passes in a haze of drinks and smoke. He drinks a little too much, and smokes whenever it comes his way, then passes it off to Derek who, to everybody’s surprise, takes his own hit nearly every time Stiles hands it to him. Stiles grins each time, and Derek just rolls his eyes, saying. “I was in high school once too, Stiles.”_ _ _

___“Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say, big grumpy alpha,” Stiles says, turning his head to continue his conversation with Lydia, but never taking his eyes completely off of Derek, enjoying the way his muscles relax into the couch, how he laughs a little more, ducking his head whenever Boyd or Lydia say something that makes him smile. “You just don’t want to admit that I was right,” he says a while later._ _ _

___Derek glares at him, but Stiles knows better than to take it seriously. He leans his head against the back of the couch and tilts his head towards Derek. Derek copies his movement and leans his own head back. He doesn’t say anything, just looks back at Stiles, and they hold eye contact for a few moments. Derek’s eyes are warmer than Stiles can remember seeing them, and he can feel a small smile playing on his lips at the sight._ _ _

___“I have a question,” Stiles says quietly, not wanting to speak too loudly for fear of breaking the moment. Derek hums, and Stiles accepts it as an invitation to go on. “In your professional opinion as a bona fide creature of the night, what are the chances of vampires coming to Beacon Hills?” Stiles asks._ _ _

___“Not likely,” Derek snorts into his drink, raising his eyebrows._ _ _

___“Told you!” Stiles says, looking away from Derek and pointing accusingly in Erica’s direction. She fixes him with a superior look, and how she can do that after just being proven wrong, Stiles isn’t sure, but he doesn’t have time to ponder for too long before she walks towards him and pulls on his arm._ _ _

___“Fine, but you’re dancing with me,” she says when he’s standing, and drags him into the middle of the room where there’s no furniture to hinder their way._ _ _

___Erica’s a good dancer, which is good because Stiles has been told that his own dancing ability is iffy at best. But he likes dancing with her, enjoys the way she moves and curls around him, the way her hips sway to the music and how she smells of whisky and flowers. He fists his hands in her shirt and his head falls to her neck._ _ _

___He loses track of time. They could have been dancing for hours or minutes, but it wouldn’t make a difference. The room is warm and hazy, the smoke circling around his head, and when Isaac joins them, Stiles just laughs and fists his other hand in Isaac’s t-shirt, pulling him closer. It feels comfortable, dancing with them. It’s intense, but there’s no hint of anything more, despite the way their lips sometimes brush against stray cheeks and necks, the way their hips move against each other’s, their hands that travel from the waist, along spines, and curve around necks._ _ _

___Stiles will admit that he has a soft spot for Isaac. Scott seemed to think he was worth saving, and Stiles has since accepted that Scott tends to have decent taste in people. Usually. When it comes to this group, at least._ _ _

___Scott wanted to save them all, and Stiles just stopped arguing a long time ago._ _ _

___Scott and Allison start dancing shortly after, and Stiles hears Allison giggle as Scott dips her and pulls her back up into a kiss, the exact sort of cheesiness that only Scott could get away with, and only on a night like tonight._ _ _

___Jackson and Lydia join next, and Erica leaves Stiles and Isaac to grab Boyd and force him onto the floor with the rest of them. Stiles is surrounded by people by this point, and his head is fuzzy with alcohol and weed and he’s drunk and warm and happy and it’s times like this that he thinks he understands perfectly._ _ _

___He swings his head to the music, letting his hips go where they may, and understands why Derek fought, all that time ago. Why Derek tried so hard to build a pack, and then to keep it, and then to maintain it._ _ _

___Because this, Stiles thinks, this is warm and nice and he feels safe, blanketed by more people than he ever thought he could have to call a part of himself. And it’s good._ _ _

___Erica has succeeded in bullying Boyd into dancing, and he hears them laughing from somewhere on the other side of him. Isaac grins and grabs Stiles’ hand, spinning him around with a chuckle. Stiles smiles and catches a glimpse of Derek as he spins, still sitting on the couch, looking far more content than he had a few hours ago. Derek’s pack, Stiles thinks, was a hell of a lot of work and it’s loud and it’s messy, but it’s worth it and Stiles is fiercely, intensely thankful that he fought for it. That Derek was insufferable and stupid and irresponsible and that it, somehow, ended in this – this hazy living room of repaired toys._ _ _

___It’s a bad idea, and he _knows_ it’s a bad idea, but he’s too drunk and happy to care as he slides over to Derek and holds out his hand. When Derek does nothing but stare at it like it’s the most dangerous thing he’s ever seen, which it very well might be, Stiles leans down and takes Derek’s cup from him with one hand, and uses his other to grab Derek’s arm to pull him to his feet. He’s fairly certain that once they start, their line is going to quickly become near invisible, but he just downs the last of what’s in the cup, and decides he doesn’t care as he pulls Derek to the swarm of people in the middle of the room._ _ _

___“This is a bad-“ Derek starts._ _ _

___“Yeah, I know,” Stiles interrupts, his hands lightly pulling at Derek’s shirt as he falls back into the rhythm of the music and the people around him._ _ _

___“Are you ever going to let me finish a –“_ _ _

___“Nope,” Stiles says, grinning now at Derek’s huff of annoyance. “Just stop _talking_.”_ _ _

___Derek laughs outright at that, shaking his head. “You’re aware of the irony in that, right?” he says, but his words are looser, and he’s starting to move along with Stiles’ movements now, so Stiles doesn’t really care much that he’s being laughed at._ _ _

___“I’m aware,” Stiles says. He pushes it further than he normally would, because he doesn’t think he has any intention of stopping once he gets there. He moves his hands up Derek’s chest, finally landing on his neck. Derek watches them as they move, and when Stiles looks up, he finds Derek watching Stiles through his eyelashes. He’s still for a second before Stiles finally feels Derek’s hands move to his hips as he pulls him closer._ _ _

___They’re dancing slower than the others, and if they notice Stiles and Derek, then they don’t say anything, too caught up in their own dizzy worlds. Stiles lets himself fall into this one. This world with just warmth and Derek and the knowledge banging at the back of his head that this is either the worst idea of all time, or one that will lead to one of the most wonderful things if he just lets himself have it completely._ _ _

___So he lets himself have it, and when Derek opens his mouth again to say something, Stiles interrupts again, this time with his own lips against Derek’s. Derek doesn’t move for a second, his movement slowing. After a moment where nobody moves, when Stiles is about to pull back and pretend nothing ever happened, Derek pulls Stiles flush against his own body and moves a hand to the back of his head._ _ _

___Stiles sighs into the kiss, his lips moving in time with Derek’s, with the bodies around him, and the beat of the music, and the rhythm of Derek’s fingers tapping against his neck, following his heartbeat._ _ _

_____ _

+++  
 _NOVEMBER_

The middle of November brings a torrential storm rolling through town, and finds Stiles still sitting out in the woods, glaring at the back of Derek’s head and resisting the urge to throw the rock he’s idly tossing between his hands at it. Thankfully there’s been a lull in the rain, or he would have been pelting Derek with rocks hours ago.

The sound of a twig snapping in the distance alerts Derek, and Stiles drops his rock a little guiltily. He looks in the direction of the noise, rolling his eyes and groaning when a raccoon scurries out from behind a tree. 

“Oh look, a wild animal. In the woods,” Stiles deadpans. “How novel.”

Derek still says nothing, and Stiles is seriously considering grabbing for his rock again. Instead, he throws his head back against the tree trunk he’s sitting at the foot of.

“What are we doing out here, Derek,” Stiles asks. Unsurprisingly, Derek says nothing, and something in Stiles finally breaks. This time, Stiles actually does throw the rock at him before he can think better of it. 

“Derek, look at me,” the rock hits him square between the shoulder blades, and Stiles has to force himself to keep his gaze steady when Derek finally turns his head and looks at him. “What are we _doing_?”

“You know what we’re doing, Stiles” Derek says, speaking slowly as though Stiles is the one being ridiculous here.

“Hark, he speaks!” Stiles says, projecting his voice to an invisible audience, extending his arms before him. “I’m sorry, let me rephrase. What are we _still_ doing out here?”

Derek ignores him and turns back around, facing away from Stiles again. Stiles nearly yells in frustration, and stands up. 

“There’s nothing _here_ ,” he says, volume rising with each word. “Neither was there last week, or last month, or the month before, or in August when we searched the first time.” 

At the mention of August, Derek’s head lifts. He turns his head slightly, so Stiles can see him in profile. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what? You won’t fucking look at me, and you won’t listen to me, and you won’t tell me what we’re _still_ doing out here after months of finding nothing!” Stiles yells. He starts to feel cold drops falling on his head and looks up, feeling rain start to land on his face, cool against his already cold skin. Of course.

“Stiles – “

“There is _nothing_. I know you wanted there to be. I did too. We all did. But there just isn’t. Staying out here, miserable and cold and wet isn’t going to make something just magically appear. There is no big supernatural evil this time, Derek. There is no enemy. It’s just us and that damn raccoon, okay,” Stiles says, leaning back against the tree and closing his eyes. He takes several deep breaths for a second, and wipes the rainwater from his face. 

“We’ve been on high alert since August, but it isn’t doing anybody any good. The pack is breaking, Derek. You’re breaking, and I can’t sit with you and wait for a nonexistent answer to suddenly appear, because it’s not going to and watching you keep at it is killing me. You’re wasting your time out here, when you should be putting your efforts into more important things now.”

If his voice cracks towards the end, Stiles doesn’t acknowledge it. He rubs his hands miserably over the top of his head when Derek doesn’t reply, and sighs. “Yeah. Okay,” he says under his breath. “Derek, I – “

“What do you want me to do, Stiles?” Derek says, sounding angry. It should make Stiles angrier than it does that Derek’s being defensive. Instead, he mostly just feels relief that Derek’s finally showing any kind of response or emotion at all. 

“What do I want you to do?” Stiles asks, incredulous. “I want you to get it _together_. I want you to _take care of your pack_. They can’t function if you’re not trying to make an effort to function properly yourself. They’re all starting to act like you, Derek.”

“Stiles you’re being ridicu- “

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Isaac hasn’t barely strung two words together since summer, and I have little doubt that it’s because you’ve hardly done the same. He’s only _just_ started hanging out again. Boyd was spending every spare moment he had researching every single possible thing he could, looking for some kind of explanation, but even he’s mostly given it up. Scott has the worst case of denial I’ve ever seen, and Jackson hasn’t said a single mean thing to me in months,” Stiles lists angrily. 

“You can stay out here if you want, Derek. But I’m not doing it anymore,” he says. “I can’t. So I’m going to go home, and shower, and go to sleep. And in the morning I’ve got school, where I’ll see your pack, and I’ll go to class with them and we won’t talk about it. Because that’s what we do. And then tomorrow, I’ll do the same thing. And the next day, and next week, and next month. Goodnight,” Stiles says, turning on a heel and sloshing away through the mud. He thinks that as far as dramatic exits go, this one could have been better but he'll work with what he's got. The rain helps. The mud, not so much.

His dad gets home right as he’s getting out of the shower, climbing up the stairs with heavy feet. 

“What are you still doing up, kiddo? Couldn’t sleep?” he asks, tiredly leaning against the banister. 

_For months now_ , Stiles thinks. 

“There was just this problem. It wouldn’t leave my head,” he says instead. 

“Oh. Well I hope you solved it,” Sheriff says, his voice indicating that he is far too tired to form a proper dad-appropriate response. Stiles understands how he feels, and he doesn’t hold it against him. His dad heads to his own bedroom, waving a hand as a goodnight and closing the door behind him. 

“Not at all,” Stiles replies to himself, heading to his room and shutting the door.

+++  
 _AUGUST_

“Stilinski, you’re being boring,” Erica says on the first day of August, and Stiles scrunches his nose. 

“Sorry about that, but there is no way I’m moving, she-wolf,” Stiles says, content to just lay on the cooling grass as the sun sets around him, listening to the sounds of everyone else burning off the energy that Stiles had lost about three hours ago. 

“You’re no fun,” she says, sitting down next to him and poking him in the stomach. 

“Mmm, that’s me. Happiness-killer, fun-sucker, murderer of all things silly and amusing,” Stiles mumbles, his eyes falling shut. 

“I thought that was Derek,” Scott says, coming towards where he and Erica are sprawled out on the ground. 

“Him too. I’ve obviously been spending too much time with him. He’s starting to rub off,” Stiles says, waving his hand vaguely towards the direction he thinks he heard Derek walk off to earlier. 

“I heard that,” Derek calls from the direction Stiles had waved. Stiles smirks to himself. 

“Stiles, seriously,” Erica says, pulling at his arm to make him stand up. 

Stiles groans and bats her arm away. “Sorry, Stiles is sleeping right now. Try again later,” he says. He can feel that the sun’s almost completely set now, roughly marking the fortieth hour he’s been awake. Last night was the full moon, so he and Derek had been up with Allison and Lydia all night keeping watch over the other five while they ran wild through the woods. 

They’d spent today by their lake, swimming and burning off all of the post-full moon energy that they were always reeling from the next day. Stiles, however, was seconds from crashing. Lydia and Allison already had fallen asleep about 20 minutes ago, leaning against each other by a large boulder. Stiles wants nothing more than to join them, and he tells Erica as much. 

“Humans,” Erica says, and he can practically hear her eye roll.

“Love you,” he calls out sleepily as she walks away. He hears her return the sentiment, and he smiles to himself as he feels his brain start to shut off. 

He feels like he’s only been out for a second when a blood-curdling scream pierces through him, jolting him to a sitting position. He’s on his feet and running towards the flash of blonde hair he sees between the trees before his brain has fully comprehended what’s happening. 

Erica’s convulsing on the ground, her hair getting caught on twigs and leaves getting caught in the collar of her jacket. 

“Erica, Erica!” he yells, kneeling down beside her. Scott and Derek are right behind him, and Stiles quickly positions her on her side, grabbing her hand for her to squeeze. He’s blind to the pain, his entire system shocked with confusion and fear. 

“What’s happening?” he asks Derek, who’s kneeling down on Erica’s other side, grabbing at her other hand.

“She’s having a seizure,” Derek says, looking as confused as Stiles feels. 

“Yeah, I see that, but _why_ ,” he says, trying to speak loud enough to be heard over Erica’s whimpers. It’s much harder than usual, and his throat feels like it’s closing up and he can’t breath. He doesn’t dare let go of Erica’s hand. 

Derek looks frantic as he breaks her arm, and it’s the train depot all over again. Stiles remembers how scared he was the last time this happened, and he isn’t any more equipped to handle something like this now any more than he was then. And it’s all strikingly the same, from the people to the arm and the screaming, and the look that she gives Stiles, and the trust she has in Derek, and the fear, settled somewhere far down deep inside him that something is going to happen to this girl and there will be nothing any of them can do to help it.

But it isn’t the same, not at all, because her arm heals, but her seizure doesn’t stop this time. She keeps shaking, and Stiles looks frantically at Derek. The world around them starts to blur and there’s ringing in his ears and he’s babbling, for real this time, just saying anything he can to keep Erica’s mind off of what’s happening to her. 

He vaguely registers the others standing around them, and he can feel the fear and tension radiating off of them, and he thinks he hears someone - Allison or Lydia or fuck, Boyd, Stiles doesn’t know - say something about 911, and how are they going to explain that they’re in the middle of the fucking woods and that she’s having a seizure when that’s not supposed to _happen_ anymore. Derek breaks her arm again, and a few fingers, but they all heal, good as new while the rest of her continues to shake, like she’s breaking down and falling apart. 

Stiles feels her grip tighten on his hand and he matches it, and just keeps talking to her, just keeps saying things. Useless things, really, like “it’s okay” and “you’ll be alright” and “you’ll heal, this will be over, just a few more seconds you’ll be fine, you’ll be fine, Erica I’ve got you, you’ll be fine, she-wolf, you have to be, you _have to be_ ,” but then she’s not shaking at all, and she’s not moving and Stiles grabs on tighter and feels his eyes pricking and the world is spinning. There’s no ground below him and there’s so much noise around him and he doesn’t know where it’s coming from but it doesn’t really sound like anything at all, and he thinks, for a second, that maybe he’s still asleep. 

He’s still laying on the grass and Erica’s just a few feet away, laughing with Scott over something Derek did and Stiles will wake up at any second. Any second, he will, just give him a minute. He grips her hand tighter, and his free hand is clenched into a fist so tight that he can feel his nails puncturing the skin of his palm, and dreams aren’t supposed to be like this. He bends over, his head burying into her shoulder and she smells exactly like she did ten minutes ago, and she’s still warm, so she’s okay. His eyes are burning, and he feels her shirt become wet against where his face is pressed against it.

“Stiles,” he hears from behind him. “Stiles, you have to let go now.”

“No, no, no, this isn’t happening,” Stiles mumbles, and he’s still just saying things. He doesn’t even know if it’s English or actual words, but it all ends up sounding like her name in the end, so maybe it doesn’t even matter what he’s saying, because she’s Erica and she’s _fine_. 

“Stiles. Stiles, _please_ ,” and the voice is nearly begging now - he knows that voice, and he’s never heard it beg before and that’s almost as scary as the girl underneath him, still for the first time ever because she’s never just _still_ \- and there are fingers covering his and the world is still spinning, but the hands are steady on his, even if the body they’re connected to is shaking against Stiles’ back and Stiles thinks this must be what the end of the world feels like. 

He would know, he’s been here before.

+++  
 _NOVEMBER_

Isaac’s having a good day.

Well, as far as Stiles can tell, and he wouldn’t exactly use the word “good”. Decent seems more appropriate. It’s a _better_ day. 

Isaac’s having a better day. 

First, it was Isaac sitting next to him and Scott in Biology, a rare olive branch that Stiles takes happily. He gives Isaac a small smile, squeezing him quickly on the shoulder. They do their work in silence, but it’s the first time he’s been able to just sit and hang with Isaac in months, and Stiles will take what he can get.

Later, on his way to meet Scott before Math, he catches a glimpse of Isaac sitting in the library. He’s sitting across from Boyd, and Stiles stops in his tracks when he sees the small smile across Isaac’s face. His head is bowed, but when he looks back up to Boyd, he shakes his head and says something that Stiles can’t hear. He sees Boyd laugh lightly in response, pointing to something on the paper in between them. 

Stiles realizes a moment too late that he should probably feel more like a creep than he does, standing in the middle of the hallway and staring at Isaac through the open library door. He ends up being late to meet Scott, but he thinks he’s worth it.

And later, when Isaac’s looking down at his notebook with confusion. "Did you catch what the word count for that English paper was supposed to be? I was working on it last night, but I just don’t think it’s possible to write 15,000 words on the color of – “

“I’m going to give you a hug, okay,” Stiles interrupts. He stops walking, and Isaac stops in front of him. He looks vaguely uncomfortable, but mostly just confused. 

“Er,” he says, the hand holding his notebook dropping awkwardly to his side. 

“I just, I really feel like I need to give you a hug right now, and you were smiling earlier, and you’ve had an okay day, and I know that those don’t really happen very much anymore,” Isaac glances away at that, but Stiles powers through, even though he feels like breaking a little at being the one to put that miserable look back on Isaac’s face. “They don’t, I know. _Believe me_ , I know. But you looked a little more normal today, and that’s just. Isaac, that’s more than I – look, fuck, I just really, really need to give you a hug right now, okay,” Stiles says quickly. Isaac’s still not looking at him, staring instead at a spot somewhere to the left of Stiles’ head, and Stiles can see Isaac’s jaw working as he chews on the inside of his cheek. Finally, Isaac takes a deep breath and turns his head to stare at Stiles, as though waiting for him to make the first move. 

Stiles breathes out a laugh and pulls Isaac in towards him, wrapping his arms around him and tucking his chin over his shoulder. After a long moment, Isaac finally relaxes and hugs Stiles back, his grip tightening on the back of his jacket as he shoves his face in Stiles’ neck. He inhales deeply and lets it go slowly, but Stiles doesn’t say anything about it, content enough at this point to just let werewolves go where their nose takes them. 

It’s not a long hug, but Stiles feels better by the end of it. He feels like they’ve moved past something, and he nods determinedly. “Pass that onto Boyd for me, in case I don’t see him today,” Stiles says. Isaac sniffs, and nods back. 

“So, about the paper,” Isaac says, once they start towards the lunchroom once again. 

“1,500, not 15,000,” Stiles says, feeling 15,000 words lighter himself.

+++  
 _AUGUST_

They’re telling him things - things that sound like _sudden unexpected death in epilepsy_ and _8-17% of epilepsy-related deaths_ and _hasn’t picked up her medication in months_ and Stiles feels like he should understand it all, but he just doesn’t. Derek’s on one side of him and Scott’s on the other and Isaac’s across from him in the waiting room, curled up on himself, his knees pulled up to his chest. He hasn’t seen Boyd in hours, and Lydia’s talking to Erica’s dad and oh god, _Erica’s parents_ and apparently real life is a thing still, because he hears things about a funeral and cremation and making plans, and this is not something that should be happening. 

Plans for the future should not be happening, because there’s no way that there’s any moving forward from this night.

He remembers the last time he was in this room, listening to the same doctors say the same things (and they’re not the same doctors, and they’re not saying the same things, but it’s the same end result and that’s all that really matters), and this place only means one thing, and that’s that there’s one less person he’s going to be leaving with later. 

Stiles is so completely, profoundly _done_ with hospitals, and death, and people around him suddenly ceasing to exist. And he just really feels like he needs to find Boyd and make sure he’s okay. So he stands up, without a word, and leaves. He thinks he hears Scott calling after him, but he can’t be sure because he still can’t hear anything properly so he just keeps walking, blinking rapidly as though each time he opens his eyes, the world will be back to normal. 

But it doesn’t happen, and he finds Boyd around the corner in an empty area along the side of the hospital. He’s sitting against the wall, knees pulled up to his chest just like Isaac. Stiles sits down next to him without a word, copies his position, and waits for the world to stop spinning.

+++  
 _NOVEMBER_

Thanksgiving ends up being, against all odds, a group effort. Some of them bring food from home, but for the most part they all end up crowded in Derek’s kitchen, talking and cooking. 

And trying very hard not to burn the cranberry sauce, because apparently if you’re Jackson and you’re near a stove, that’s a thing that happens. He stares at the smoking blob for a moment, dumbfounded and trying to figure out how before shrugging and moving on. He has potatoes to figure out how to mash, and no time to deal with Jackson’s incompetence. 

He tells Jackson as much, and receives a glare and a half-hearted insult in return. Stiles just laughs. 

“I appreciate your holiday spirit,” he says, trying to figure out how many potatoes he’ll need. He figures more is probably for the best, and ends up dumping the entire bag out on the kitchen island, one rolling off the edge before he can stop it. 

Isaac catches it before it hits the ground, handing it back to Stiles with a grin. 

“Show off,” Stiles says. Isaac just shrugs and goes back to his stuffing duties. Somebody plugs an ipod in a few minutes later, and the already bustling kitchen gets louder and more frantic as they start moving in uncoordinated time with the music.

Derek catches Stiles’ eye, and Stiles feels momentarily like he’s been punched in the gut, remembering his explosion in the woods and realizing this is the first time they’ve been in the same room since. 

Stiles is about to return to his potatoes in defeat, but Derek just clasps a hand on the back of his neck and smiles a little. Air returns to Stiles in a rush, and he smiles back, kicking at Derek’s shin a little. 

They’re fine as they’re working with their hands, focusing on not ruining what they’re making and not being forced to hold any kind of extended conversation. When the music is louder than their thoughts, and they can all work together in some kind of uncoordinated tandem. 

Sitting around the table is a different story. They don’t go around the group and say what they’re giving thanks for, and it’s mostly silent when they don’t have anything to draw the focus away from all of the things they aren’t saying. 

The conversation dies after the third time somebody asks somebody else how their classes are going, and whether they’re ready for semester finals, and how did they think they did on the last math test? They sit in a strained silence before, after a long moment of nothing but the sound of glasses hitting the table and forks against places, Isaac coughs and shifts in his seat a little. 

“I mean,” he says, swallowing the bite of food in his mouth. “At least we’re not all being blown up by Alphas this year.”

They all freeze for a second, remembering the previous thanksgiving where the Alphas had attacked the train depot, hoping to catch them off guard. They had been in the process of relocating to Derek’s house permanently, and only a few of them were in the Depot when it was attacked, and they were all fine in the end, but it tended to be a sore subject. Derek’s house is home now, but shitty train depot or not, it was kind of the first place that Erica, Isaac, and Boyd had to consider theirs as a pack, so nobody really brings it up. 

Nobody makes a sound, and Allison’s got her glass frozen halfway to her mouth. Stiles looks around, waiting for somebody to react. Finally, after several tense moments, Scott snorts. 

“Lets just hope Christmas is better than last year’s too,” he says, returning to his food. Stiles shudders at the memory of last Christmas, which had been even worse than Thanksgiving, but finds himself laughing a little too. Isaac joins, and with that that, it’s like a seal is broken. Conversation picks up, and even Derek smiles down at his food. 

Allison and Boyd find themselves deep in a conversation about different brands of crossbows, and Lydia teases Jackson on his disaster of cranberry sauce before kissing him on the cheek and taking a bite of it anyway. 

Stiles laughs to himself, and shakes his head. Derek must hear him above the din of conversation, and his eyes meet Stiles’. 

Stiles raises his glass a little before taking a drink, and winks at Derek. Derek sets his fork down and sits back in his chair, content to watch them existing around him.

+++  
 _AUGUST_

It takes a few days, in the chaos of planning a funeral, combing the town for evidence of foul play, and trying to assure the hunters that it wasn't anything supernatural, before they realize Jackson is gone.

Derek's been moving at a pace even Stiles is finding hard to keep up with. Boyd is helping Derek with whatever he can, Scott and Allison are on hunter-diplomacy duty, and Lydia's busy with Erica's parents.

Isaac's locked himself in his room at the house, only emerging when absolutely necessary. They go days without properly seeing him, and nobody really questions it when they haven’t heard from Jackson in a few days either.

Isaac finally emerges on a Saturday morning, his expression matching everybody else's as he joins them in the living room. They're a sea of black, dressed and ready for the funeral.

They'd all received invitations a few days earlier, because even though Erica's dad wasn't around much, it's still pretty obvious from a distance who her family was. Lydia had made that very clear when she essentially commandeered most of the funeral plans from under Mr. Reyes' nose.

Stiles had gotten the impression that he hadn't minded much, in way over his head with trying to handle it all himself.

"Where the hell is Jackson?" Stiles asks aloud, checking his watch.

"He'll be here," Lydia assures him, voice tight. "I left his suit with his housekeeper last night."

"Yeah, well if he's not here in six minutes, I'm leaving without him," Boyd says from where he's leaning against the banister, standing just behind Derek. Together they present a unified front of exhaustion and misery. Stiles feels exactly how they look.

Boyd had been up all night searching the woods at Derek's insistence, while Derek and Stiles had been searching every inch of the house on the edge of town that the Alphas had been using last year.

Stiles had to retire sometime around three, knowing that he would need at least a few hours of sleep before be had to be up to help Lydia with last minute funeral things. Derek, he supposes, hadn't turned in at all.

"He'll be here," Lydia says, starting to verge on shrill. She fixes Boyd with a glare Stiles is sure he doesn't deserve, but he is way too tired to go on the defensive for someone else's behalf. Especially not against a stressed out Lydia whose voice is reaching levels only dogs can hear.

Which, Stiles supposes, isn't too much of a problem in this room.

Jackson doesn't turn up. They save a seat for him at the end of their pew in the church, but it remains empty for the whole service.

The service is wholly uncomfortable. Stiles' dress shoes don't fit as well as they used to, and he hasn't been to church in so long that he’s forgotten how hard the benches are. He can feel everybody else around him fidgeting in similar discomfort, but it's more than that. He doesn't need the magical parts of being pack to let him know how everybody else is feeling.

Isaac ends up with Derek and Stiles on either side of him. He doesn't look up from his lap even once, but Derek keeps a hand on the back of his neck, and Stiles keeps his shoulder pressed against Isaac's for the whole service. He can feel a faint buzzing through Isaac's body, as though he's trying as hard as possible to keep himself still from shaking or running away or howling or _something_.

Scott's on Stiles' other side, Allison next to him. Stiles can hear her crying softly, and he feels bad about it, but he can't bring himself to look at them. Seeing Allison cry is like seeing the sun go out, and seeing Scott like this might actually send him running from the church to go throw up in the bushes outside. His whole life with Scott has been about being there for him and trying to avoid him ever having to wear the look he’s currently got on his face, like he’s just shut down. 

Mostly, he can't handle seeing Scott look back at him like Stiles is broken, whispering "are you okay dude?" and just trying to help. Because it’s what Scott does, and he appreciates it, but Stiles is fine.

So he doesn't look at Scott. He focuses instead on keeping one eye on Isaac, and one on the lookout for Jackson. Lydia sits next to Jackson's empty seat, becoming visibly more distressed as the service goes on.

By the time they're at Erica's house afterwards, surrounded mostly by Erica's distant family from out of state and a few stragglers from around town, each one of them look like they're ready to collapse. Derek hasn't taken a hand off of Isaac, who leans into his touch like a lifeline. Boyd keeps even closer to Derek than usual, his eyes a constantly varying level of wetness, and Scott looks like he's on the verge of being sick.

Allison's trying to console Lydia, who's gone silent and still. She'd stopped crying about ten minutes into the reception, taking to sitting in a chair and staring blankly at the door instead. Allison kneels next to the chair, assuring her that Jackson should be here any minute. 

"He probably just didn't want to interrupt the service by walking in halfway through. He'll be here," she says in her softest tone, and god bless Allison. Stiles could kiss her.

"No, no he won't," Lydia says finally. She shakes her head, and Stiles furrows his eyebrows at that. It's the first time all day that Lydia's said anything over than some variation of "he'll be here or I'll kill him".

"What?" Allison asks, picking up on the change in tone too.

"He's not coming," Lydia repeats. "I haven't heard from him since I gave him the invitation four days ago. His housekeeper said that his door has been locked for days, and he won't answer any of my calls. I thought he would show up today, but he didn't. He's not coming."

Lydia’s distress comes, Stiles knows, from more than just Jackson being an idiot and ditching the funeral. He’s feeling the same thing, the absence of yet another person who should be there with them. It takes them by surprise, adding another worry to their constantly growing list of missing links.

Derek's paying attention to Lydia now, and Stiles swallows heavily when he looks at him. Derek looks, if possible, like he’s in even more misery than he was this morning, with a good amount of the self-loathing that Stiles hasn’t seen so prominently on his face in a very long time.

They commandeer the couches in the living room, the seven of them taking up more space than any other group in the house, but it's still not enough. They're not taking enough space, Stills thinks.

Jackson doesn't show up to insult them needlessly and be at the center of everybody's attention, and Erica doesn't sit next to Stiles and kick at his shoes trying to catch his attention.

They're not there to be loud and incite argument and laugh at dumb jokes and complete them. 

They're two people short, and the gap is deafening.

+++

"What was with Derek's face?" Stiles asks as he's driving Scott home afterward.

"What face?" Scott asks. 

"The uh, the look like he wanted to fling himself off of the nearest cliff into a river of liquid wolfsbane," Stiles explains. "But you know, more so than usual. He looked like he did years ago."

"Oh. That," Scott says. He fidgets a little, playing with the glove compartment idly. "I think he's mad at himself for not realizing Jackson had left."

"Yeah, but how would he have known? None of us did," Stiles says.

"We should have," Scott explains. "Maybe not you or Allison, but the rest of us should have. We're supposed to feel it, and Lydia knew something was up. I guess we all just assumed it was Erica's funeral that was making the feeling stronger, not that somebody else was gone."

Scott closes the glove department and scratches his head absently. "We just, we should have known," Scott turns his head towards the window, and Stiles figures that means the conversation is over, so he drops it. 

Stiles tries to take a deep breath, questioning whether any air actually made it to his lungs through the hole in his chest.

+++  
 _DECEMBER_

Stiles is genuinely surprised that it took this long, if he’s being honest with himself, for something to hit them like a sledgehammer, taking whatever progress they thought they’d made and smash it all to pieces. He really should have seen it coming.

The house had been filled with nearly all of them for weeks on end, and they’d finally figured out how to hold something resembling normal conversation during lunch, despite the gigantic neon arrow seemingly pointing down on the empty seat next to Stiles, glaring them all in the face with a reminder of what’s missing. 

All of the wolves’ heads lift when they hear somebody walking towards them. They all look around, aware of the fact that the seven of them are all accounted for, and they aren’t expecting anybody else to join them. Stiles looks around, confused as to why they’re all suddenly on high alert when he sees who it is walking towards their table. 

“Guys, it’s fine. It’s just Kevin,” Stiles says. “Retract the claws, please.”

“Hey, Stiles, I had a question about our history presentations real quick, if you don’t mind,” Kevin says when he reaches their table. 

“Sure, dude. What is it?” Stiles says, pushing his tray away and rubbing his hands together absently. 

“Okay, so like, Carson was saying that it’s supposed to be done in two parts, but – “ 

“NO!” Stiles, Scott, Jackson, and Lydia all yell at once. Kevin’s halfway perched in Erica’s chair, his backpack already off of one shoulder. Kevin stops talking, his jaw practically on the floor. He looks freaked out and perplexed at once, and Stiles is too busy staring at the chair to feel bad for the guy. 

“That’s um…that’s,” Allison starts, her voice shaking. 

Lydia’s biting down hard on her bottom lip, and Isaac and Boyd haven’t moved an inch. Stiles is pretty sure Isaac’s not breathing whatsoever. Boyd, on the other hand, seems to be breathing too much, his chest moving rapidly up and down. 

Logically, he knows that the chair has been moved before now. It’s stacked up every night for the janitors, and put back down every morning, and other people use the cafeteria throughout the day. It’s most likely a different chair completely. But to him, that chair hasn’t been touched by anyone but Erica since last June, and he had been planning on keeping it that way. 

Kevin still hasn’t gotten up, and Stiles is about to explode just looking at him sitting where he shouldn’t be. He’s on the verge of yelling at Kevin to get the fuck up when Isaac stands up abruptly, his chair falling backwards and hitting the ground with a loud bang. 

He puts both of his palms flat on the table in front of him, and glares at Kevin as though he’s the reason Erica’s seat is open in the first place. Stiles is afraid that he’s going to wolf-out any second when Isaac turns around and stalks out of the lunchroom without a word. 

“You can’t sit there, dude,” Jackson says, his voice low and dark. His words drip with more genuine malice than Stiles thinks he’s ever heard come from Jackson. It sends a chill up Stiles’ spine, and he finds himself focusing entirely on Jackson instead of on the chair or Isaac. Of all the people he’d expected to react with so much vitriol over something like this, Jackson wouldn’t have been at the top of his list. 

Kevin stands up slowly, seeming to finally get with the program. His grip on his backpack is tight enough that his knuckles are starting to turn white, and he looks thoroughly terrified. Stiles doesn’t blame him. Isaac tends to be almost equal with Scott when it comes to being easily mistaken for a puppy, but being at the receiving end of both Isaac’s grief and Jackson’s rage is not a position Stiles envies. 

“I’ll just. I’ll just message you on facebook later, Stiles,” Kevin says, practically running away and sitting down on the other side of the cafeteria. Stiles lets out the breath he’d been holding.

+++  
 _AUGUST_

Stiles remembers sophomore year, right after the dust from the kanima had settled and they started to fully realize where that dust had left them. And it left them Gerard-less, Kanima-less, one alpha pack heavier, and with Erica and Boyd missing. 

Derek’s face, having lost two of his betas, and thinking he’d lost Isaac to Scott, was one that Stiles had hoped he’d never have to ever see again, and he didn’t even particularly like Derek then, any more than he had to. 

But Stiles had still understood. He’d understood that Erica and Boyd were his - that they were pack, and that Derek hadn’t just been trying to build a network of wolves he could bind himself to, but that he had been trying to build something resembling a family. 

And Stiles had understood that they’d left him alone again.

And now, Stiles is really fucking pissed that has to see that look on Derek’s face again, and double that because it’s Jackson’s fault this time. 

The only thing keeping them all together at this point is that Derek is absolutely sure that Jackson isn’t dead, and that he isn’t hurt. He’s too far away for Derek to locate, but the knowledge that he is, objectively, okay is a small relief off of their shoulders. 

In the evenings though, when everybody gets ready to go home for the night, Stiles catches the look on Derek’s face as he’s left with an empty house, a broken pack, and a catatonic beta upstairs. One of those nights, nothing in Stiles can bring himself to leave Derek alone. 

He waves Scott away, wordlessly assuring him that he’ll be fine, and finds Derek sitting alone in the living room. Stiles doesn’t have to say anything, just sits down next to him on the couch and grabs his hand. He tilts Derek’s head towards his and kisses him, solid and strong and sure and everything that they both need in that moment.

Derek leans in, closing his eyes and after a moment the kiss fades into just their lips still against each other, their breaths mingling somewhere in the middle. 

Stiles wakes up in the morning, plastered against the inside of the couch with Derek draped halfway on top of him. After a few minutes, Derek opens his eyes and looks around, confused for a moment before his eyes lands on Stiles. He sighs, burying his face back into Stiles’ shoulder before forcing himself into a sitting position on the edge of the couch.

Stiles sits up, positioned somewhat behind Derek, with one leg hanging off the couch, and the other pulled up against his chest.

“Do you know what we’re going to do?” Stiles asks. Derek shakes his head. Stiles takes a deep breath. “We’re going to set that line again. It’s going to be big and clear and we’re just going to just hang out on one side of it this time. Like the start of a race, and we can’t go until the guy with the gun says so. That’s what we need.”

“How do you know that’s what we need to do?” Derek asks.

Stiles shrugs. “Call it instinct.”

Derek lets out a deep breath, turning his head and resting his face against Stiles’, his nose against Stiles’ forehead.

“I just think,” Stiles says quietly. There’s no need for being louder than necessary, not now. “That this is way too undefined to get going, and that neither of us are really ready to define it. So no definition, no leaving the block.”

Derek nods, and Stiles takes a deep breath. Stiles, for his part, just needs things to be as normal and ordered as possible, and knows that floating in some kind of tangled ether with Derek will start to eat at him sooner rather than later at this point.

“I’m pretty sure I’ve only got like two more seconds of being able to be mature about this, so I just - I just want you to know. That she was a part of all of us. And that I don’t know what’s going to happen next. But just know, _please_ , Derek, just know that you’re not alone this time, okay. You’ve got the rest of the pack, and that I’m here for whatever you need. Seriously.”

Derek is still for a moment before he nods, so small that Stiles only knows it happened because the bridge of Derek’s nose is still resting against his forehead.

“Okay. Now, I really need to go before I take all of this back and start acting my age again,” he says. He waits another moment, his eyes closed, before he takes a deep breath and presses a quick kiss to Derek’s lips. He gets up and goes. He sleeps when he gets home, his dreams bracketed by the memory of Erica’s body going still under his hands, her eyes gold in the moonlight.

+++  
 _DECEMBER_

Isaac doesn’t go straight to Derek’s after school that day.

Neither does Boyd, and Allison arrives halfway through the afternoon. Jackson stands in the corner of the room, arms crossed and staring miserably at the ceiling for most of the evening. Allison, Lydia, and Scott huddle on the couch, controlling their breathing in time so as to not upset the others. Stiles sits on the floor, his back against the side of the couch, and stares at his shoes, unable to look around the house and see all of the exact places from which Erica is missing, which seem to be louder and more obvious after today in the lunchroom.

Derek looks bewildered, and he looks beseechingly at anybody at all for some kind of explanation. 

Stiles wants to tell him, wants to grab his hand and shove his face in Derek’s neck and tell him about the chair, and Jackson’s angry response, and how Isaac’s face just _broke_ like the last few weeks of improvement meant nothing, and how it felt like the hole lingering between all of them felt like it had been freshly re-dug, but worse this time because it wasn’t really even anything. It was just _Kevin_ , who is an idiot but doesn’t mean any harm, but Stiles doesn’t even care because he just wants to rip him limb from limb. 

But Stiles doesn’t tell Derek any of this, preferring instead to sit and stare at the hardwood, fingers playing frantically with the strings of his hoodie.

Stiles pulls over on the side of the road on the way home and has his first panic attack in months, forehead against his steering wheel as he pounds his dashboard with his arms and tries and fails to just _breathe_ through that stupid hole in his chest that keeps stealing all of the air.

+++  
 _AUGUST_

The longer Jackson stayed away, and the further they found themselves from the surreal morning of the funeral and facing the impending reality of school starting again, the heavier Stiles found the weight sitting on his chest every morning. 

Nobody talked anymore. They were lucky to get even three people to the house at once, and Isaac and Boyd had mostly just stopped coming downstairs altogether. 

Derek had taken to spending every one of his spare minutes searching every inch of the town and woods for even a trace of unaccounted for wolfsbane. They’d heard word from Erica’s dad a few days previously that the autopsy tox-screen had yielded an uncommon amount of aconite in her system, though the doctors said that that wouldn’t have had any hand in triggering or triggering the seizure. Coincidence, they said.

But the doctors don’t know what the rest of them do. 

A few days after receiving the news, Boyd wanders into the living room, interrupting the silence of Stiles, Derek, and Scott trying and failing not to just sit there and stare at one other miserably. Their initial searches of the town hadn’t yet yielded any results, and it felt strangely like they were running out of time for answers, despite the damage already being done.

Boyd came with a renewed vigor, talking at length about rare forms of wolfsbane that he’d been researching and asking about whether he could use Peter’s database and the remnants of the Hale’s library and that he had an idea and that he “thinks this could be it, Derek. It won’t bring her back, but at least it’ll be answers,” and Derek had been too dumbfounded by Boyd’s sudden energy to say no. 

By the time school began a few days later, Jackson hadn’t returned, they’d determined the town was wolfsbane free, and Boyd hadn’t found anything in his research despite being buried in books everytime Stiles saw him.

+++  
 _DECEMBER_

Stiles finds himself alone with Jackson at lunch a few days later. It’s the first time he’s been alone with Jackson since his disappearing act months ago, and he taps his fingers against the tabletop as he eats and attempts to study for a test he’s got in a few days. He finds himself glancing up at Jackson every few seconds instead. 

“Stilinski, just spit it out,” Jackson finally growls after the millionth time Stiles finds himself studying Jackson’s face instead of his book. 

Stiles is silent for a moment, mouth agape. He bites his bottom lip and furrows his brow, trying to force something into a coherent thought. Something that happened the other day has been teasing at the back of his brain, but he can’t quite place what. Jackson looks at him expectantly, and in the end nothing fully-formed comes to mind. 

Jackson rolls his eyes and goes back to eating his food and typing furiously on his phone. 

“I didn’t know you were that affected by Erica,” Stiles ends up blurting a few minutes later. He cringes, and feels a small pang of guilt when Jackson looks up at him, a flash of hurt coming over his features. 

“What?” Jackson says quietly. 

“I don’t – I don’t mean it like that,” Stiles says quickly. “I just mean, You’re…you know. I just didn’t know, is all,” Stiles struggles. He groans and attempts some kind of vague hand gesture to get his point across before dropping his head unceremoniously on the table. “Never mind, forget it.”

Jackson sighs loudly, and Stiles can practically hear his eyes rolling so hard they’re probably stuck somewhere in the back of his head. “Stiles,” Jackson says, and being addressed by something other than his last name is surprising enough to make Stiles lift his head so his chin is on the table and he’s looking up at Jackson, who pushes his lunch tray to the side and folds his arms in front of him. 

“Here’s the thing. We’ve all got Derek in common,” Jackson says. “Derek’s the alpha, and we’ve all got him. That means pack. I didn’t sign up for pack, and emotions and all of the extra stuff that comes with this, but it’s what I ended up with so that’s what it is.”

Jackson pauses as though he’s talking to a very small child and he’s waiting for Stiles to catch up and affirm that he hasn’t gotten lost along the way. Stiles would be annoyed, except seeing Jackson like this is rare enough that he bites back any retorts and just nods quickly instead, his chin bumping painfully against the table. He lifts his head and gives Jackson his full attention. 

“When you’re pack, and when you’re wolves, and somebody is lost...” Jackson takes a deep breath, and looks somewhere behind Stiles’ head. He closes his eyes and looks more pained than Stiles has seen him be since he returned from his time in San Francisco. 

“It doesn’t just hurt, Stiles. It literally rips a part of you away and you can’t even begin to know where to start looking for it. It’s just _gone_ , and your wolf wants to go looking for it, but the human part of you knows better, and you don’t know which side to listen to and all the while there’s just this huge _hole _, okay.”__

__Stiles nods again, slower this time. He knows how that feels. He and that hole are longtime friends. It’s like a tear through the middle of your body that never properly heals._ _

__“I tried really hard to not be a part of this pack. And then after she was gone, I tried really hard _again_ because that’s just not what I signed up for, but then that only made it worse. I ran away, and I never apologized for that, and I’m sorry. I just - I couldn’t do it and I couldn’t deal with feeling everybody’s grief on top of my own and feeling her absence every single second. _ _

__“So it doesn’t matter, Stiles, that Erica and I weren’t best friends. It doesn’t matter that we didn’t sit up all night talking about boys and doing each other’s hair. She was pack, and that’s enough,” Jackson says, fixing Stiles with a stare more intense than he would have thought him capable if it’s not meant to be threatening or laden with condescension._ _

__“Losing family sucks, and that’s one thing. We’ve _all_ been there. But that’s human, okay. When it’s pack, it _literally_ tears a piece of you away. So. That’s it. She was pack. And I don’t like it when people try and fill in the spaces where she was, because they don’t _fit_ , and it just makes it hurt even more,” Jackson finishes._ _

__Jackson picks up his tray, slings his backpack over his shoulder, and walks away, leaving Stiles sitting alone at the table staring after him in thought._ _

__

__His conversation with Jackson stays with Stiles for the rest of the day. He’s pretty sure it’s the first time Jackson’s said something that fills Stiles with something other than varying levels of irritation. It’s still mildly irritating, but only because it took Jackson to make Stiles realize something that he really should have realized months ago._ _

__"Scott, buddy," Stiles says, catching up to him outside after school. "You have a minute?"_ _

__"Yeah, sure, but only a minute," he says. He points towards the parking lot. "I'm meeting - "_ _

__"Allison, yeah," Stiles says. He just looks at Scott for a moment and takes a deep breath, not entirely sure what to say now that he's here. "I just uh. Are you - are you okay?"_ _

__Stiles winces, shaking his head a little at himself. Scott looks mildly confused, but mostly just surprised. "Uh, yeah. I'm good, dude," he says, patting Stiles on the shoulder and turning to leave._ _

__Stiles grabs his arm. "No, I mean like. In general. About everything. About - about Erica."_ _

__The level of surprise on Scott's face increases tenfold, and Stiles can see him kind of shut down after a second of gaping. Stiles can count the amount of times they’ve said her name on one hand, and it scrapes across his insides every time. They shouldn’t have left this for so long. It’s December now and they’re still no better at this._ _

__Most of all, he hates himself for putting that look on Scott's face. It’s the same one Scott had at the funeral - the one Stiles couldn’t even bring himself to look at, but he thinks it's necessary this time. This feels like something he should do._ _

__"I just," he continues. "I had a conversation with Jackson, and it got me thinking that I may have missed a few things along the way. And that I've been kind of a shitty friend."_ _

__"No, Stiles -" Scott tries, but Stiles holds up a hand._ _

__"No, I have. I didn't really realize what you meant in August about the reality of your pack bond thing. I've been around you guys for like two years now, and nobody ever really fully explained it to me. I just kind of assumed it was just like some kind of psychic thing or whatever, but it's. It's physical. It hurts. It’s like a piece of yourself left - literally. And I think I get that now."_ _

__"It gets better," Scott says softly._ _

__"And I'm sorry. I really am," Stiles continues. "For not realizing that it might have affected you more than I thought. I never really asked you if _you_ were okay, so I'm doing it now. Are you okay?"_ _

__"Stiles, you don't have to worry about me," Scott says. "I'm fine."_ _

__"I always worry about you dude. It's kind of my job," Stiles says. He gives Scott a look, wordlessly letting him know that he's not getting out of this._ _

__Scott’s phone vibrates in his hand and he glances at it. Stiles figures that it’s a text from Allison, and starts mentally planning on how to bring the conversation back up later, since his time is apparently up. Instead, Scott just pockets his phone and turns his attention back to Stiles, and that in itself means more to Stiles than anything Scott could possibly say right now._ _

__"It was worse, at first," Scott says. "Right when it happened. I knew immediately, and I didn't know how, but I just did. And it hurt in my whole body, like there was a hole that just kept getting bigger. And then I got used to it a little, but then it got worse again, before the funeral. That was Jackson running away," Scott explains. "It never really fully goes away. Not completely, but I can't imagine it's any different from what you feel, which is why I guess I never bothered you with it. Just because we're werewolves doesn't mean we hurt any differently."_ _

__Stiles gapes, completely taken off guard. Scott is an idiot and imperfect and he makes Stiles want to scream approximately all of the time, but in the end he's basically the smartest and most perfect person in the world and Stiles wouldn't give him up for anything. He’s always been aware of it, but it’s times like this that Stiles gains a newfound appreciation for every single thing that Scott is._ _

__He feels a huge surge of affection for Scott through his body, and knows Scott can sense it because he just kind of smiles sheepishly and rubs at the back of his neck._ _

__"Anyway, it was worse for Jackson, Isaac, and Boyd,” he says, changing the subject. “They all turned at about the same time, give it take a few days, and they all got turned by the same person. They were a lot more connected. And Derek’s probably got it the worst, being the connector and all."_ _

__Stiles nods, but doesn't let Scott get away with it. "Still, she was pack and she's gone, and it hurts," he says, echoing Jackson's words. “You’re allowed to hurt too.”_ _

__Scott just nods, looking thoughtful. His phone vibrates in his pocket with a new text, but he ignores it again._ _

__"Nobody ever really asked you how you were either.” Scott says, pointing accusingly at Stiles. “You never let them,"_ _

__Stiles just waves a hand, hoping to deflect this turn in the conversation. Scott presses on anyway. "I just wanted to help you, but I wasn't really sure how because you wouldn't really let me or tell me or anything. I kept thinking I was doing everything wrong. I still kind of think I'm doing everything wrong."_ _

__"Scott," Stiles says weakly. He's pretty sure he’s about to collapse under the weight of Scott and his stupid unexpected perfection. "You didn't need to do anything. You did perfectly. I just, I just needed normal and for people to act normally and be normal and you did that. I get that now. When Derek was off being super-detective, and Jackson was gone, and Isaac didn't talk, and nobody was okay - I was just trying to hold it together and keep things how they were and you were the only one who got that."_ _

__Scott just shrugs. "Yeah, I just. I remembered last time, with your mom, and how you kept your house exactly the same, and how you started bringing me lunch every day because still making two was easier than starting to make just one.Things got kind of thrown off the rails after I got bitten, but I just remembered what you did before and tried to do the same."_ _

__Stiles groans a little, completely out of words and breath and so completely over the distance between them. He has no other thoughts than to do anything but pull Scott in for a bone-crushing hug, gripping the back of his jacket._ _

__"Dude, you can - you can let go now," Scott says after a minute._ _

__"No I can't. Let me have this," Stiles says, his face buried in Scott's neck. Scott just laughs and hugs back._ _

__"Okay. Good. That was good," Stiles says when they finally let go. "Tell Allison I'm sorry I kept her waiting so long."_ _

__Scott smiles and starts to walk away. He turns around after a few steps and looks at Stiles. "Maybe you should talk to Derek now," he says._ _

__"When the hell did you get so smart, dumbass?" Stiles asks, laughing._ _

__Scott just shrugs and turns around to keep walking, effectively solidifying his place as Stiles' number one favorite person in the entire universe._ _

____

+++ 

__

__Stiles starts noticing again, after that, all of the other physical holes that Erica left behind. Aside from the chair in the cafeteria, there was her spot on the couch, and her place at the dining room table, and her favorite ice cream that everybody still buys out of habit. There’s the way that they never really fully came together until recently, and even then just barely. And there’s her house in the neighborhood next to Stiles’, where her dad still technically lives, but not really._ _

__Her parents had her cremated, but have a plot for her in the Beacon Hills cemetery anyway, next to her grandparents and some great-aunt. Stiles thinks that a grave is just too literal a representation of there being a hole where she might be found, so he doesn’t visit too often. He knows that there are plenty of things in this world that are more Erica than her name carved into some rock._ _

__Still, sometimes he finds himself driving there after school if the weather’s nice, or if it feels like a day where he’d get home and find her sitting in his windowsill, or he’ll drop by if he’s in the area visiting his mom’s._ _

__The day after his talk with Scott, he sits next to her headstone, playing idly with the grass beneath him. Stiles managed to get Danny to hack into the online order and add something to the design. It’s just a small thing, but he thinks she would have liked it._ _

__“Jackson cares,” he tells the headstone. “I guess I should have figured. He’s chilled out a lot in the last year. I don’t think he expected all of this - the emotional side. That wasn’t his intention in becoming a werewolf, but he cares about the pack. He cares about you. That must be nice._ _

__“It’s sunny today. Sort of. Well, not really. It’s slightly less grey than yesterday though, so I’m counting it. Definitely not vampire-weather. Which still don’t exist by the way, you ridiculous person.”_ _

__Stiles sighs. He leans his head on the stone, his fingers tracing the two small wolf prints carved into the bottom._ _

__“You left holes everywhere, you know,” Stiles says. He doesn’t expand on that thought though, and is content to just sit for a while and let it hang in the air, unfinished._ _

__He doesn’t start when Derek joins him an hour later. He sits next to Stiles on the grass, and they stay for a while, not touching, not talking, not really moving other than the slow rise and fall of their chests as they breathe._ _

__“Jackson told me you might be here,” Derek says after a while. It’s a rare thing that Derek’s the one to break the silence, but Stiles doesn’t immediately say anything in return. “You missed the meeting.”_ _

__“Did I?” Stiles asks, genuinely surprised. He’d hardly missed a pack meeting even before Erica’s death, but he’d made every extra effort he could to attend every one afterwards._ _

__He turns to look at Derek, who just nods. “Hm,” Stiles hums._ _

__“Boyd found something. A rare form of wolfsbane. One of the oldest, and it only pops up every few hundred years,” Derek says. Stiles looks at Derek, who takes a deep breath and continues. “If it was a bitten werewolf who had pre existing conditions as a human, the wolfsbane settles in their system for up to a year before it finally brings the condition back to how it would have been as a human.”_ _

__“So,” Stiles says, starting to put two and two together._ _

__“It would have just given her her epilepsy back, but she’d still have wolf-powers, which is why her arm kept healing,” Derek says, nodding. “The death itself was a coincidence. Death by epilepsy isn’t very common, but it happens. There wasn’t anything we could have done.”_ _

__Stiles doesn’t say anything, just sits and lets the information wash over him. He feels like they’d been searching for answers for so long, and despite Stiles’ acceptance in the end that it wasn’t anything supernatural, there was still a part of him always expecting it to be part of some long-standing Plan C of Peter’s, or another ridiculous creature preparing to roll into town. It being a legitimate coincidence kind of throws Stiles off his guard a little. He’s not really sure how he should react, so instead he sits and stares at the grass, finger tracing the wolf paw absently._ _

__“If it was given to her a year before she died, then that would place it to when she was taken by the Alpha pack. They probably gave it to her, hoping to weaken us by making her unexpectedly sick again with something she couldn’t heal. I don’t think they meant to kill her, but it doesn’t matter now,” Derek finishes. The Alphas are long gone, so there’s really nothing to be done there at this point, despite finally having something to place the blame on._ _

__But the death itself. That was just the world playing tricks._ _

__Stiles feels like he should be more worked up over this. Surprised, or angry, or ready for revenge, or _something_. Mostly, he just feels tired. He arranges himself so that he’s sitting cross-legged with his back against the headstone, his knee landing somewhat on top of Derek’s thigh. He lets it stay, too tired to care. He leans his head back and closes his eyes. _ _

__“I’m sorry,” he says eventually, changing the topic a little and deciding to follow Scott’s advice. “For the woods. I know you’re just doing your best. I shouldn’t have gone off like that. You were just trying to figure it out.”_ _

__Derek ducks his head. “No, it’s. You were probably right. It was a wasted effort. The answer wasn't going to be there.”_ _

__“But an effort nonetheless,” Stiles says. “More than whatever it is I’ve been doing,” he says offhandedly._ _

__“Stiles,” Derek says, sounding suddenly sharp. Stiles opens his eyes and looks over at him. “Don’t. You’ve done more than enough.”_ _

__Stiles snorts at that. “Please,” he says._ _

__“You didn’t - ,” Derek says quickly, his voice rising. He takes a deep breath, and starts again, looking straight at Stiles. “You’re the only reason anybody still bothers, you know. You keep them together the best you can. You’re the _only_ one to show up regularly. You’re the only one to volunteer whenever something needed to be done, like those fucking patrols. You were there if they needed to talk or just needed somebody to be there. There’s a reason Erica went to you in your room that day. You did _everything_.”_ _

__Stiles leans his head back and closes his eyes again. “I’ve been doing all of that for Scott for years, anyway. And it’s basically just what I did before.”_ _

__“Stiles – “_ _

__“I just didn’t want anything to change more than it had to, so I did exactly what I did before,” Stiles interrupts. “Last year, it’s what I did because I wanted to. I was there for whatever it is that werewolves like to do when they’re lonely. And I volunteered for everything you needed help with, although last year it was mostly just to spend time with you,” Stiles huffs a laugh to himself. “Habits die hard, I suppose.”_ _

__“It was what they needed,” Derek says, and Stiles smiles to himself._ _

__“That’s good to know,” he says honestly. It doesn’t change the fact that Kevin in the lunchroom might have put Isaac back a month or two, or that Jackson has apparently been feeling way more than he'd ever let on, or that they're still a pack member down. But it’s nice to know, he supposes, that at the very least he didn’t make anything any worse._ _

__"How's Isaac?" Stiles asks. He hasn't seen him since the incident with Kevin. He's knows it's irrational because its not really Kevin's fault, but Stiles wishes for the first time that he had a set of fangs so he can tear the guy to shreds._ _

__"Boyd's been helping him," Derek says. "No offense, but I want to go to your school and punch your friend in the face."_ _

__Stiles laughs at that, shaking his head lightly. "Get in line. I'm surprised the guy hasn't transferred schools already. Jackson practically tore him a new one in just five words and he's stopped eating lunch in the cafeteria. We should probably stop glaring at him when we pass him in the hall," Stiles shrugs. He's not too worried about Kevin's feelings, if he's being honest. He doesn't take lightly to people upsetting his pack, intentionally or not._ _

__Derek chuckles a little, and they fall back into a comfortable silence._ _

__After a few minutes, he starts to feel Derek shift, like he’s getting ready to get up and go. He opens his eyes and grabs Derek’s wrist before he can start to properly stand up._ _

__“I just. I just came by to say hi to her,” Stiles says, nodding to the headstone he’s still leaning against. “You should - can you stay? Please?”_ _

__Derek looks like he’s about to protest, but Stiles tightens his grip around Derek’s wrist, and Derek stops any attempts to get up. He rearranges himself so that he’s sitting next to Stiles, sharing the headstone to lean against. The headstone isn’t that wide, so they end up pressed together from shoulder to thigh, but Stiles doesn’t mind. He moves his hand from Derek’s wrist to his hand, entwining their fingers._ _

__Derek squeezes his hand, and Stiles takes a deep breath, turning slightly so he can press his face into Derek’s shoulder, inhaling. For the first time in months, Stiles feels like he can breathe._ _

____

+++

__When Stiles was younger, he had very little patience for most books and movies, because they all felt too big picture. He found it hard to believe in the coincidence that somebody’s life just so happened to be captured at its most exciting point, instead of all of the boring times in between and after._ _

__If somebody were to write a book about his life, nobody would care about how long it takes to drive from his house to Derek’s, or how Scott sometimes shifts when he’s brushing his teeth so that he can get his fangs too, or how Erica never drank the last little bit of her coffee. _He_ doesn’t even think about these things as much as he should. He doesn’t like it, but his life just feels like one big moment after another. The stuff in between tends to get lost in the shuffle. _ _

__He was born, he met Scott, his mom died, werewolves happened, Derek Hale happened. Erica died the summer before senior year. He doesn’t always remember everything that happened in between. Soon, he’ll graduate and go to college. One day, he might even give a definition to this Derek thing, and that will definitely go under the category of “big things”._ _

__Because when he thinks about it, the big picture _is_ the detail. His mom died, but she liked to go to the florist on Sundays and she had red hair that she liked him to play with. Werewolves were a thing, but if done correctly, they could smell out the best place to eat and made for a lot of funny punchlines if the mood was right. _ _

__Erica died, but she was his first really great female friend, back when Lydia was still in that almost-friend ether, and she liked to wear her hair down because she didn’t like the birthmark on the back of her neck. She was the first girl to have a crush on him, and she wore boots even in the summer because they made her feel prepared for anything. He doesn’t think about these things enough, but he likes that they’re always there underneath the surface anyway._ _

__He doesn’t remember when Derek even became his friend, much less when he became more, because the details fall away. One day he was a freaked out sophomore fighting a lizard-classmate and yelling about trust, and another he’s a tired senior staring at a friend’s gravestone with his hand tight around Derek’s. The little things get lost, but they’re there somewhere. Probably hanging out with the bruise on his arm from Derek pulling him away from the Alphas, and the hazy buzz of his hands when they danced._ _

__Everything about Stiles’ senior year circled back to August. August was the big picture, but August was also the details. He doesn’t like August, but he likes Erica’s boots, and he likes Derek’s hands. That might be enough._ _  


**Author's Note:**

> The death is Erica. I made myself very sad doing that.
> 
> Additionally, the incredible [Sphesphe](http://sphesphe.tumblr.com/) did two wonderful wonderful pieces of art for this fic, and I cannot tell her enough how in love with them I am oh my god. [Here!](http://sphesphe.tumblr.com/post/40967297014/august)
> 
> Finally, this honestly would not have happened if it weren't for [Janessa](http://superwolves.tumblr.com), who has been there since this all began in, appropriately, August - through losing a hard drive, writing half of this on my phone, nearly missing like every deadline, etc. Thank you a million million times!
> 
> (Also, come hang with me on [tumblr](http://mccalled.tumblr.com)! I don't bite! At least not without warnings of hunters and some seduction techniques, a la one Derek Hale.)


End file.
